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THE TAMING 
OF THE FRONTIER 





Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2021 with funding from 
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 


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THE TAMING 
OF THE FRONTIER 


EL PASO : OGDEN : DENVER : ST. PAUL 
SAN FRANCISCO : PORTLAND : KANSAS CITY 
CHEYENNE : SAN ANTONIO : LOS ANGELES 


BY TEN AUTHORS 


EDITED BY 
DUNCAN AIKMAN 





NEW YORK 
MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY 
: 1925 


Coryricut, 1925, 
By MINTON, BALCH & COMPANY. 


Printed in the United States of America by 
J. J. LITTLE AND IVES COMPANY, NEW YORK 


20 Mer- 3S 


778 
#i¢t 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION . Rui a nate yl, 
EL PASO: “The Ainge Baia on the 


Frontier . 
By Owen P. White 
OGDEN: ‘The Underwriters of Salvation . 
By Bernard De Voto 


DENVER: Washed Whiter’n Snow 
By George Looms 


SAN FRANCISCO: A eaiaann of Bo- 
hemia . ; 
By Idwal Jones 


ST. PAUL: The Untamable Twin . 
By Grace Flandrau 


PORTLAND: A Pilgrim’s Progress 
By Dean Collins 


KANSAS CITY: Houn’ Dawg vs. Art 
By Henry J. Haskell 

SAN ANTONIO: The Unsainted Anthony 
By Dora Neill Raymond 


LOS ANGELES: Ballyhooers in Heaven 
By Paul Jordan-Smith 


CHEYENNE: The Wild West Sells its 
Atmosphere . 
By Cary Abbott 


— 904841 


PAGH 


Xi 


27 


63 


99 


125 


157 


201 


237 


293 





ILLUSTRATIONS 


RNEERSONAN LOGS 5 Nets kil yi chia aly je, Lert POMS OIECE 
FACING PAGE 


Salt Lake City, Utah Territory,in 1857. . . . . 40 
POE LPeet TT eONVerUIN WLSGOe 46) tlisc\!' a) heen) le) a se nO 
Baeeranciscosiny tie Late Pitties 303 )ie)\) 0) Velie es, hae 
Pere YC G te WEMCLON Se, tye!) he! wire aka ti%er)) (eet oka 
Court House Park, Portland, in the Eighties . . . 182 
PO SPCALY DUD RL OOM ee hai ihe) ) eho elt ah tele) ee 
san Antonio in the Highties.. . . 2. « « +» 248 
Povendcelies mm the Late Wiftiess, (is sae ee a STZ 


The Last Trip of the Cheyenne-Deadwood Coach on 
ET MET VOU LSAT ter belie ate Vey gh ihe yh eee Od 





CONTRIBUTORS 


Owen P. Wuirr, though he is now in his forties, 
is the oldest inhabitant of American parentage 
born in El Paso. He is the author of “Them Was 
the Days,” a retrospect of frontier life, and “Out of 
the Desert,” a history of El Paso, and is a frequent 
contributor to the American Mercury. At present 
he is on the staff of the New York Times. 

BrernarpD Dr Voro, a native of Utah, is an in- 
structor in English at Northwestern University. 
His first novel, “The Crooked Mile,” was published 
in 1924, 

GrorcE Looms is a former dramatic editor of 
Denver newspapers and is the author of three 
novels: “Stubble,” “John No-Brawn,” and “The 
Caraways.” 

Ipwau JongEs is an ex-machinist and a writer of 
special articles on the San Francisco Examiner. 
His first novel, dealing with gypsy life in America 
in the 1850’s, will be published in the fall of 1925. 

Mrs. GracE F'LANDRAU, a native of St. Paul, is 
the author of two novels, “Being Respectable” and 
“Entranced.” 

Dean COLuins is a feature writer for the Port- 
land (Ore.) Telegram and a frequent contributor 
to magazines. 

1% 


whys CONTRIBUTORS 


Henry J. Hasxe.u is chief editorial writer of 
the Kansas City Star. He is a contributor to The 
World’s Work, The Outlook, and The Indepen- 
dent. 

Mrs. Dora NEttu Raymonp, a native Texan, 
is assistant professor of history in Sweetbriar Col- 
lege, Virginia. She is the author of “British Policy 
and Opinion during the Franco-Prussian War” 
and “The Political Career of Lord Byron.” 

Pau JorDAN-SMi1TH, a Californian of long resi- 
dence, is the author of a book of essays, “On 
Strange Altars,” and two novels, “Cables of Cob- 
web” and “Nomad.” 

Cary ABBOTT is a native of Cheyenne and a 
former editor of the Yale Literary Magazine. 

The publishers are indebted to the editors of The 
American Mercury for permission to reprint “El 
Paso” by Owen P. White and “San Francisco” by 
Idwal Jones, 


INTRODUCTION 


The legend of the standardization of American 
cities is easy to believe. There is an appalling 
amount of supporting evidence. While New 
Orleans hacks down its “galleries” to make room 
for office buildings, Keokuk imports “California- 
Spanish” bungalows and Santa Barbara imports 
Iowans. Spokane and Peoria and El Paso func- 
tion with impressive efficiency as each other’s un- 
conscious mimics. There is justice even in the cruel 
saying that, despite the fame of its criminal intel- 
ligentsia, Chicago is but the Los Angeles of the 
Great Lakes region. 

Serious defenders of vivacity and variety in our 
national life have good grounds for complaining to 
the police about wanton cruelties inflicted by all 
this high pressure uniformity upon that unfortu- 
nate animal once called the American individual. 
What chance has he in a civilization which only 
asks that he get into a groove and never under any 
provocation flop out of it? How can he survive 
except in a secret and ironic anguish in a society 
which demands that as go-getter, up-lifter, high- 
powered executive, fundamentalist, Labor Union 
business agent, home town booster, Yale alumnus, 
or Country Club play boy, he run one hundred per 


cent true to type seven days a week? 
xi 


Xii INTRODUCTION 


One cannot read of these ten cities, or, indeed, 
be alive in any American city today without realiz- 
ing how the gods of individualism in both personal 
and community life have been thrown down to 
make way for the gods of standardization. Out 
in the West especially, where a generation or two 
ago the pioneer imposed his individuality upon raw 
and uncouth towns at the point of his six-shooter, 
today the group prejudices of boosters and breed- 
ers to type impose their pet conformities with ges- 
tures scarcely less ferocious. Laugh publicly and 
rationally at the slogans and statistics of the 
Boosterburg Chamber of Commerce and you will 
see. 

But is all this merely a truth of temporary ap- 
pearances, or one of those devastatingly eternal 
truths from which there is no escape short of trans- 
Jation to a reasonably variegated Hades? 

These articles supply an answer, and a glimmer 
of encouragement. 

Standardized, as these ten western cities are, 
where there was so little of ancient and deep- 
rooted tradition to keep off the coming of uni- 
formity, they are by no means ten finished Booster- 
burgs. 

Drawing upon some inexhaustible blandness in 
her ancestral heritage, San Antonio has fought the 
boosters and their conformities to a standstill. No 
blows exchanged, no rough stuff. It is merely as 
if a travelling drummer or the Rev. Dr. Sunday 
had hoarsely criticized the gown of a princess, and 
she, not deigning to attend his discourse directly, 


INTRODUCTION X1il 


had thereafter worn the garment with a slightly 
more studied carelessness. 

In San Francisco, it is true, the modern Ap- 
polyon fills the streets more and more with the 
stench of his realtorian ethics, the windy sound of 
his Kiwanian back-slappings and of Lions roaring 
booster slogans in chorus. But San Francisco still 
fights Appolyon in the name of ancient and fantas- 
tic gayeties; in the name of personal idiosyncrasies 
too acid to merge easily with the digestive fluids of 
Main Street which would, if they could, convert us 
all to the same chemical substance. 

Appolyon may have begotten a Boosterburg 
upon San Francisco. But the damsel’s term is 
not due yet, and, considering her sophistication and 
the hectic life she leads, there may be a mishap. 

The other eight cities are perhaps further gone 
along the Boosterburg way. Yet even so, much 
is to be said for them. ‘The state they have attained, 
is the same, let it be granted: Kansas City and Los 
Angeles are two peas of slightly different size and 
structural appearance from the same pod. But 
into this very sameness, they have grown by what 
different processes, with what varying motives! 

Portland to preserve the good name of her soiled 
Puritanism by a noisy display of it! Denver seek- 
ing in intolerant conformity an effective check upon 
an individualism once intolerably and criminally 
violent! Los Angeles realizing that that municipal 
standardization which makes the loudest noise upon 
this planet will best qualify its realtors financially 
to entertain angels of Hollywood! Ogden resolute 


XIV INTRODUCTION 


with the smug cunning of its stupidity to make a fat 
living out of conformity while the chance lasts! El 
Paso whipped on by the inferiority complex of a 
small and remote community to risk all on doing, 
however clumsily, “the right thing”! Kansas City 
struggling pathetically and inharmoniously, but 
more encouragingly than some others, to deter- 
mine what the “right thing”’ is! 

For these are, despite their more or less common 
ending, varied tales—fully as varied as the million 
and one romances which have concluded “and so 
they were married.” Fiction apart, that is a coin- 
cidence which has, by proof in the vital statistics, 
occurred in the lives of several billion historical 
persons. May there not be a similar biological 
impulse, a similar necessity of growth and develop- 
ment, which requires one to chronicle of a certain 
period in the lives of cities “and so they were 
standardized?” 

So it would seem from these ten chronicles of 
progression toward a goal at least as appalling and 
dangerous to individuality as is matrimony itself. 

Yet we have the modern novel to thank for the 
revelation that the phrase, “and so they were mar- 
ried,” is by no means the end of the story, or even 
the end of diversity. 

May it not be thus also with the melancholy con- 
clusion of so many of these histories? May not 
these very diverse motives which within living mem- 
ory have pushed ten of our outstanding western 
cities into a standardization both odious and amus- 
ing to contemplate, push them onward, when the 





INTRODUCTION XV 


momentary coincidence has passed, into an indi- 
vidualism as sharply diverse as that of the Italian 
cities of the 15th century? 

We shall know better when our grandchildren 
contribute their sequel to this symposium. Mean- 
while, may not the very vigor and dash of these 
protests against our sterile urban conformities be 
signs from the God of cats who walk by themselves? 


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EL PASO: 
“THE RicgHt THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 
By 
Owen P. White 





THE TAMING 
OF THE FRONTIER 


EL PASO 


S I look back over the few short years that 
intervene between the reign of Ben Dowell, 
E] Paso’s first potentate, and that of Dick Dudley, 
its present dictator, and compare the paved, pious 
and stolid city of to-day with the rough, uncouth 
and very gay town in which I was born, I cannot 
refrain from heaving a deep and comprehensive 
wheeze of regret. Where life was once cheerful, 
filled with alarms and worth living, it is now flat, 
decorous and commonplace; where men were once 
publicly and delightfully naughty and openly belli- 
cose they are now only surreptitiously so; where the 
leading citizens once wore six-shooters and Win- 
chesters they now wear wrist watches and golf 
sticks, and where—God save the race!—the com- 
munal sports, in days past, were wont to drink hard 
liquor out of the original carboys and to play poker 
with the North Star as the limit they now absorb 
coca-cola with a dash of tequila in it, and bet on 

mah jong at a twentieth of a cent a point. 
It’s pathetic. It really is. And it began in 

3 


A Tur 'TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


1873. Before that calamitous year, from time im- 
memorial, all the residents of El Paso, of both 
sexes, had been in the habit of bathing freely, 
openly and nakedly, in the sight of God and any- 
body else who cared to look, in the irrigation ditches 
that ran hither and yon through the adjacent fields 
and vineyards, It was a delightfully primitive and 
intimate custom; one which everybody enjoyed and 
indulged in without thought of evil or blush of 
shame. And then, in the year mentioned, suddenly 
and with no adequate reason, El Paso, with its 
three combined saloons and gambling houses, its 
one hotel, its two stage stations and horse corrals 
and its three stores, took unto itself the idea that it 
would some day become a great city, and in antici- 
pation thereof held an election. As was right and 
proper, Uncle Ben Dowell, whose saloon was the 
biggest in town, was chosen mayor, and to assist 
him he was given a board of six aldermen whose 
secular occupations ran all the way from the un- 
profitable one of an Episcopal minister out of a 
job to the lucrative one of a Jewish merchant. Im- 
mediately these seven men, newly intrusted with 
legislative control over the liberties of their fellow 
citizens, proceeded to commit a deed of imperish- 
able shame by writing in large, flaring letters on 
page one, in book one, of the Ordinances of the 
City of El Paso the words “Thou shalt not!’ It 
became a high crime and misdemeanor for any per- 
son, male or female, brown or white, married or 
single, to wade, paddle, dive, duck or swim in the 
waters of any irrigation ditch within the corporate 


“THe Ricuot THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 5 


limits of the city! Civilization had arrived with a 
bang. The old days were no more. 

El Paso, in those years, was not much to look at. 
Mud, mere primitive mud, mixed with straw and 
baked in the sun, was all that the town was made 
of, and although all the other settlements along the 
Rio Grande had their mission churches, it had none, 
and so there was no belfry on the sky-line to break 
the monotony of the low, flat-roofed houses. 

But the location of the town, even though it was 
forgotten by the men of God, made it important in 
the eyes of certain other men. Standing in the door- 
way of his saloon and looking to the north and 
south, Uncle Ben Dowell, in his leisure moments, 
could allow his gaze to wander along a trail—the 
oldest in the United States—which wended its ad- 
venturous way through the two thousand miles of 
perils that separated Santa Fé in New Mexico 
from the City of Mexico down in the old country. 
And looking in the other direction, to the east 
and west, he could see the celebrated Butterworth 
stage route, which meandered along over its sandy 
and sinuous course clear through from San An- 
tonio to the Pacific Coast. Thus El] Paso stood 
exactly, to the very inch almost, at the cross-roads 
formed by two great continental trails. It is due 
to this one unassisted fact that the town owes its 
origin and also—with humble apologies to those 
who fancy that it will cease to function as soon as 
they pass on—its present existence. Over these 
two great trails came the stages by which El Paso 
kept in uncertain touch with the rest of the world, 


6 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


and from one of these stages, every now and then, 
some stranger would descend. 

Those were the days when no man in the South- 
west asked any other man where he came from or 
what his business was. El Paso, indeed, had no 
credentials of her own to exhibit to strangers and 
so.she asked none from them. Any visitor who 
dropped in was free to go as far as he liked so long 
as he paid his way, restrained his curiosity, and 
refrained from entering into an alliance with the 
private soul-mate of a permanent resident. For 
those who, either because they were tired of life or 
because they were ignorant or reckless, disregarded 
these proprieties there was a cemetery provided. 
As for the regular residents of the place—and there 
-were only twenty-five or thirty Americans among 
them, the rest being Mexicans who cultivated the 
grape to turn it into wine and agwardiente—they 
did practically nothing except watch for dust 
clouds along the mesa rim, play monte, poker or 
faro, bet on straight-away horse races and cock 
fights, and drink the beverages composed by the 
Mexicans. 

During this period of its life EK] Paso, under the 
rule of Ben Dowell, J. F. Crosby, Joseph Magoffin, 
Sam Schutz, Parson Tays, and James Hague, was 
hard but it was not vicious. Men lived loose, 
irregular and immoral lives because they lived nat- 
ural ones. There were some laws, true enough— 
those of the State, the nation and God—but in- 
asmuch as none of these authorities kept a repre- 
sentative on hand to enforce them the duty of 


“THE Riegut THING” ON THE FRONTIER 7 


preserving his life and protecting his property 
devolved upon each individual. The result was 
that men were indubitably he; they read each 
other’s eyes and not the Book, and a word was as 
good as a bond. But Utopias, of course, never 
last, and an end had to come to this one. Ever 
since 1859 El Paso had been marked on the map 
of progress as arailroad center. Frémont and even 
the great Baron von Humboldt had forecast a 
great future for the little cluster of mud huts. 
But it was not until 1879 that anything of a defi- 
nite nature occurred. In that year, suddenly and 
thrillingly, four great railroad trunk lines—not 
merely one, but four—began to build feverishly in 
the direction of Ben Dowell’s saloon, and the mo- 
ment it became generally known that his bar was 
to become an important junction, men of all classes, 
from all parts of the United States, began to 
hasten to it. These newcomers, alas, were not like 
their heroic predecessors. They were of a lesser 
and ignobler breed. ‘They were border parasites 
coming in to prey upon the railroad payrolls. At 
first these men, and the women who were with 
them, came in slowly, but as the railheads gradually 
drew nearer and nearer the influx increased, until 
by the middle of 1880 people were arriving at the 
rate of hundreds a day. They came in ambulances, 
in buggies, in wagons, on foot and on horseback; 
they ate what they could get; they slept any- and 
every-where they worked during the day erecting 
adobe houses to live in and caroused joyously 
through most of the night. In short, El Paso had 


8 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


a boom and everybody was happy and hilarious, 
especially the old-timers who had waited so long. 

But their joy was soon mixed with sorrow. 
Within a few months after the beginning of the 
rush, and almost a year before the first railroad 
finally reached the town, the city fathers found that 
they were up against a new and a hard proposition. 
The former bad men, the gun-toters of the plains, 
the Mexican bandits, the Apache Indians and the 
brown-skinned sefioritas who loved for cash were 
species which they knew how to handle. But when 
it came to managing the new element in the popula- 
tion, made up principally of crooks who had taken 
their Ph.D. and LL.D. degrees in the great me- 
tropolises of the East, they found themselves 
stumped. Murders which were unwarranted and 
unethical, even from the free and easy point of 
view of the frontier, became too frequent to be 
tolerated, and ‘petty criminals, a class heretofore 
unknown to the Southwest, began to operate enor- 
mously. Life and property thus became unsafe, 
and so El Paso once again organized itself for the 
protection of its honest citizens, and a newly elected 
council set about looking for a man upon whom to 
wish the job of city marshal. 

The gentleman finally honored with this office 
was a warlike character by the name of Campbell 
and, in order that his administration might be 
made a complete success, he was given an assistant 
in the person of one Bill Johnson. ‘To the two was 
intrusted the business of putting the fear of God 
and a respect for the Constitution into the hearts 


“THE Ricut THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 9 


of El Paso’s new and unregenerate citizenry. 
Meanwhile, the town had begun to grow in size as 
well as in population. In place of one short street 
and three saloons it now had two _ pretentious 
avenues and between twenty and thirty drinking 
resorts. In place of being fed at two chile joints, 
the populace ate in style at half a dozen Chinese 
restaurants. And now it boasted, too, of several 
new dance halls, with dirt floors, and two variety 
theaters, one of which, the Coliseum, owned by the 
Manning brothers, was the largest in the West. 
Over the social activity for which these suddenly 
acquired municipal improvements furnished a back- 
ground, Marshal Campbell and his able assistant 
were supposed to exert a restraining influence. 
But they never did. On the contrary, under their 
control the town went from bad to worse, until at 
the end of a month or two a condition prevailed 
which made Ben Dowell and Joseph Magoffin and 
Samuel Schutz, who had been on the border since 
°59, and who thought they knew something about 
real wickedness, blush for shame at the contempla- 
tion of their own innocence. Campbell struck up 
an intimate friendship with the Manning brothers 
and with the proprietors of the other resorts and 
would arrest none of their patrons, and Johnson 
stayed drunk all the time; in consequence, the new 
town lock-up stood untenanted. 'The new element 
in the population, in brief, did as it pleased, and 
since its tastes ran largely to robbery, riot and 
bloodshed, it soon became apparent to all right- 
thinking men that something had to be done. 


10 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Finally the mayor sent for the marshal and de- 
manded a show-down. Campbell replied by declar- 
ing that his salary was not large enough to justify 
him in wasting any more energy on his job than he 
was already putting into it, but he assured his 
Honor that an increase in pay would bring about 
an increase in the number of incarcerations. 
Whereupon, much to his surprise and disgust and 
to the chagrin of his friends, he was promptly fired 
and his badge and baton transferred to his inebri- 
ated assistant. ‘Then the whole town, with the new 
marshal and his former chief in the van of the 
drinkers, went on a spree. ‘This lasted for about 
a month and then, as a wind-up, ex-Marshal Camp- 
bell and his friends proceeded to carry out a plan 
they had formed for restoring him to his old dig- 
nity. Shorn of detail, this plan was to shoot up the 
entire town at one great blast and so scare the 
mayor into hiring Campbell again, and at his own 
figure. 

Accordingly, at two o’clock one morning, when 
all communal festivities were at their height, when 
love looked love to eyes that spoke invitation, when 
the men on the graveyard shift in the gambling 
halls were ready to take their places, when the bar- 
tenders, working hard, were telling the line to form 
to the right, and when the girls in the variety thea- 
ters were most industriously a-hoof, the word was 
given and hell was let loose. In every saloon, 
dance hall and chink restaurant in the town and in 
both of the variety theaters it was the same. No 
place was spared. Every light in E] Paso went out 


“THE Rieut THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 11 


under a fusillade of shots and in the ensuing dark- 
ness, aS men cursed and women screamed, all sorts 
of herculean deviltries were engaged in. Men were 
assaulted and robbed, girls were pinched and 
kissed, and many an eminent citizen was sent home 
on the run with six-shooter bullets kicking up the 
dust under his heels. Nowhere in the West had the 
shooting-up process ever been carried out with such 
scientific thoroughness. When it was over the con- 
spirators relighted a few kerosene lamps in the 
least damaged of the saloons, pulled the bartenders 
out from their holes, and, soothed by their ministra- 
tions, sat around and waited for daylight to arrive, 
confident that the mayor and all others concerned 
were by now convinced that Campbell, and Camp- 
bell alone, could handle the situation. 

But the mayor was made of harder stuff. Next 
morning, when the six-shooter smoke had cleared 
away and men were beginning to poke their noses 
out of the doors of their shacks, he sprung a sur- 
prise of his own. Instead of sending for the dis-, 
charged marshal and reinstating him in office he 
did something that was entirely unheard of. He 
sent down to Ysleta, a small settlement thirteen 
miles away on the Rio Grande, where a camp of 
Texas rangers was located, and asked that a de- 
tachment be sent up to police the town until he 
could make some arrangement to handle it himself. 
His call was promptly answered. Capt. J. B. 
Gillett, than whom no better man ever stuck foot in 
a stirrup, came galloping in at the head of his men, 
and from that time on peace and quiet prevailed. 


1. THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


But as the rangers were State officers whose busi- 
ness it was to patrol the frontier and not to do 
police duty in towns, they were lent to the mayor 
for the period of the emergency only, and so the 
council found itself under the necessity of finding 
a man to fill Campbell’s place permanently. He 
appeared almost at once, and, as it seemed to the 
harassed burghers, almost providentially. His 
name was Dallas Stoudenmire. Accompanied by 
his brother-in-law, Doc Cummings, he came down 
from New Mexico, called upon the mayor, pre- 
sented his credentials, asked that he be made cus- 
todian of the peace, and was forthwith given the 
job and told to go to it. 


Stoudenmire was a German blond, six feet four 
inches in height, weighing two hundred pounds and 
carrying two six-shooters. When he was told to 
go to it, he went. Bill Johnson had never been re- 
moved fiom office officially, even while the rangers 
were in town, but this trifling omission made no 
difference to the new head of the Polizei. The 
moment he pinned on his badge of office he called 
upon Johnson and demanded the keys to the jail. 
The drunkard, not being acquainted with Stouden- 
mire, and also, perhaps, still thinking that he had 
some legal rights, refused to deliver them. There- 
upon the giant seized him by the collar, turned 
him wrong side up, and shook him until the keys 
dropped from his pocket. For a day or two after 
this everything was serene. ‘Then, presumably 
when Stoudenmire was not around to take a hand 


“Tor Ricut THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 13 


in the fray, his brother-in-law, Doc Cummings, was 
killed in a gun fight following an altercation with 
the Manning brothers. This killing, for which Jim 
Manning, whose bartender and not he was prob- 
ably guilty, was tried and acquitted on a plea of 
self-defense, resulted in an enmity between 
Stoudenmire and the Mannings which brought 
bloody results. 

The first trouble, coming within a week, pre- 
sented itself to the new marshal as a fortuitous 
opportunity to display his prowess and place him- 
self squarely before the connoisseurs of the town. 
An unimportant inquest had been held over the 
carcasses of two Mexicans, found murdered on the 
outskirts of the town. At its conclusion a quarrel 
arose between Johnnie Hale, an old resident and a 
close friend of the Manning brothers, and a man 
named Gus Krempkau. For the purpose of ter- 
minating the argument, and probably desiring to 
get home for lunch, Hale pulled out his artillery 
and shot Krempkau dead. Immediately Stouden- 
mire, who had come up and joined the crowd, went 
into action. With his first shot he killed a Mexican 
who looked as if he was about to pull a gun, with 
his second he sent Johnnie Hale’s soul winging to 
the angels, and then, turning just in time to see 
ex-Marshal Campbell, who was directly behind 
him, reach for his weapon, he killed him too. 

This spectacular masterpiece at once established 
his reputation. Three men with three shots, any- 
where in the Southwest in those days, constituted 
an almost perfect score and thereafter, for a few 


14 Toe TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


weeks, the marshal was allowed to lead an unevent- 
ful and undisturbed life. During these weeks the 
town was quieter than it had ever been before, and 
the town lock-up, unused during the Campbell- 
‘Johnson administration, nightly sheltered swarms 
of felons upon whom the hand of the law, as rep- 
resented by the mighty grip of Dallas Stouden- 
mire, had been ruthlessly laid. This activity, how- 
ever, only served to increase the hatred that the 
sporting element harbored against Stoudenmire. 
It was bad for business to have men put in jail 
who still had money in their pockets and were 
drunk enough to spend it. Therefore, combining 
the high motive of business expediency with the 
more archaic one of revenge, the Campbell crowd 
got together and decided to put Stoudenmire out 
of the way. For that purpose they made use of the 
animosity of Bill Johnson. Bill was filled with 
fighting whiskey and it was suggested to him that 
he ought, in common decency, to kill Stoudenmire. 
Hadn’t the marshal treated him like a Mexican 
when he shook the keys out of his pocket? 

Bill, thus plied with persuasions, finally agreed. 
It was a dark night, a fine one for a murder, and 
he was given a double-barreled gun loaded with 
buck shot, and led to a point across the road from 
Ben Dowell’s saloon. At this place, which is now 
the intersection of the two principal business streets 
of El Paso, there stood a pile of bricks to be used 
in the erection of the town’s first brick building, 
and behind it Johnson secreted himself to await his 
victim. When he went into ambush Stoudenmire, 


“Toe Righut THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 15 


whose movements were being closely watched, was 
down at the Acme Saloon, but it was well known 
that he would soon make his evening round of the 
town. It was not long before his enemies, a num- 
ber of whom had hidden themselves across the 
road from Johnson’s hiding place, saw him ap- 
proaching, and when he was within twenty feet of 
the brick pile they saw Johnson rise up behind it 
and fire both barrels of his gun. But either be- 
cause he was suffering from a severe attack of buck 
ague or stage fright, or because he was unsteady 
from too much whiskey, he missed. Then Stouden- 
mire, drawing his pistol, quickly filled the would- 
be assassin’s body with bullets. The men on the 
other side of the road now opened fire on him, 
wounding him in the foot, but, drawing another 
gun, he charged them head on and quickly put them 
to flight. 

From that day until he resigned from office 
Stoudenmire held imperial sway over El] Paso. He 
kept order, sometimes by shooting his man, some- 
times by merely bringing down his gun upon the 
offender’s head. Unluckily, like most men of his 
class and time, he had one great fault. He was a 
copious drinker and, although he could carry an 
almost incredible cargo without loss of his faculties, 
there were still times when it would get the better 
of him and he would become dangerous even to 
his friends. Finally, after a year of service during 
which he wrote his name, principally with blood, 
upon the imperishable records of Kl Paso, he was 
politely asked to resign, and the Captain Gillett 


16 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


already mentioned was appointed to succeed him. 
Within a few months after his resignation Stoud- 
enmire was killed in a gun fight with two of the 
Mannings, Jim Manning, as usual, being tried for 
the murder and acquitted on his regular plea of 
self-defense. 


In 1881, shortly before Stoudenmire resigned, 
the first railroad reached the town and immediately, 
over night almost, its entire aspect underwent a 
second change. Physically the metamorphosis was 
striking. Before the locomotives puffed their way 
in there had been only one brick building, no board 
floors, and according to legend, only two glass 
windows in the place. Such Babylonish luxuries 
as mahogany fixtures in the saloons and square 
pianos in the dance halls were unknown. But 
within less than a year all of these deficiencies, as 
well as some others of which the town had been 
theretofore ignorant, had been supplied. Brick 
buildings began to take the place of the old adobe 
ones; ornate bar equipment and costly gambling 
tables replaced the makeshift devices formerly in 
use; men who had never before tripped the light 
fantastic on anything but Mother Earth could 
now hear the tapping of their own boot heels, and 
a new element, a peroxided, hand-decorated, fe- 
male one, recruited in the East and Middle West 
and shipped in by the carload, came to supplant 
the brown-skinned, black-eyed, dusky-haired sefio- 
ritas of the day before. Night life in the town 
now became more alluring than it had ever been. 


“Tre Ricot THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 17 


A wonderful prosperity was about to come to the 
Southwest, and Vice, knowing that the pickings 
were going to be easy, garbed itself becomingly for 
the harvest and assumed an air of affluence. The 
blonde women wore beautiful gowns—cut too high 
and too low, but beautiful none the less; the bar- 
tenders discarded their flannel shirts and corduroy 
pants and began to wear white jackets and thou- 
sand-dollar diamonds; and the gambling fraternity 
blossomed out in all the glory of imported tailor- 
made garments and kept women. 

Behind all this was the constant thought of 
money. Up to the time when the news that the 
railroads were on the way had changed a village 
that was actually admirable for the heroic quality 
of its badness into a border town whose population 
was made up largely of abject apostles of vice, 
nobody had cared very much for cash. Money had 
been a convenience but not a necessity. A man’s 
social standing had then depended much more upon 
his capacity for handling his liquor and his ability 
to shoot straight than upon the number of fifty or 
hundred dollar bills that he could display to a 
sordid public. In the pre-railroad days money was 
not the swmmum bonum of the El Pasoans. But 
it became so the moment the boom was under way. 

In addition to unloading blondes, bar fixtures 
and building materials, the trains also began to 
deliver a class of men who came for the purpose of 
embarking in more or less legitimate business. 
These newcomers became just as busy as the sports. 
They set about making the town a good one for 


18 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


trade, as the sporting fraternity had already made 
it a good one—the best in the Southwest—for en- 
tertainment. Thus El Paso soon became the 
Mecca towards which every honest soul in the 
Southwest who had his pockets full turned at least 
once and usually several times a year. The dia- 
mond-studded bartenders, the beautifully tailored 
gamblers and the wonderfully painted ladies ex- 
tended to the visitors, one and all, an invitation to 
enjoy themselves. ‘They all came and they all had 
a good time. The resorts were open twenty-four 
hours a day, seven days a week. Thus, for more 
than twenty years, ranch owners, cow-punchers, 
miners, prospectors, traveling men and merchants 
from all over Texas, Arizona and New Mexico 
made an annual pilgrimage to El Paso, ostensibly 
to transact business, but really to be painlessly 
relieved of their accumulated wealth. 

Men who had entered into legitimate business 
saw it increase wonderfully; they began to grow 
rich. Corner lots which had been valueless a short 
time before made fortunes for old-timers who had 
held on to them, and showered down a golden har- 
vest upon delegations of realtors from Missouri, 
and upon a trio from Tennessee who had come in 
early enough in the game to grab some choice loca- 
tions. The advance in cattle prices turned former 
cowpunchers into plutocrats; prospect holes out 
in Arizona and up in New Mexico transformed 
their previously poverty-stricken owners into mil- 
lionaires. Everybody made money, and everybody 
was happy. El Paso grew; the sporting element 


“Tor Ricut THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 19 


continued to prosper; the derby hat and the white 
collar became tolerated; marriage licenses began to 
be issued with some degree of regularity; ministers 
of the gospel made their appearance; church spires 
pierced the heavens. And then the war was on! 


For the first few years there was only desultory 
skirmishing. But in 1894 there began a struggle 
which soon had most of El] Paso’s “better” element 
side-stepping with as much agility as a flea shows 
in hopping. By better element, of course, I mean 
that portion of the population which was not en- 
gaged directly in operating saloons, gambling 
houses, dance halls, variety theaters or stews. 
Naturally, this element was large, but if I were to 
say, in place of “directly operating,” “interested 
in” or “profiting by,” the number, I fear, would 
be somewhat reduced. In fact, everybody in El 
Paso, and even the city itself, was deeply involved 
with the sporting element. For years the revenues 
derived from licensing gambling houses, dance halls 
and bawdy houses ran the city, thus relieving the 
taxpayers of a heavy burden and allowing the 
pious to contribute heavily to foreign missions and 
Bible societies. But that was not all. In addition 
to helping the city fathers with their financial prob- 
lem EK] Paso’s sports did the business men of the 
community a more direct service. They made the 
town highly attractive to all the citizens of the 
adjacent States, and brought in thousands to buy 
bolts of calico, picks, shovels and barrels of dill 
pickles who might have just as well placed their 


20 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


orders in Denver or Los Angeles. These cus- 
tomers came in person, transacted their business 
during the day, and then at night, as a matter of 
hospitality, they were shown the town, chaperoned, 
as a rule, by the merchant or banker or broker with 
whom they had had their dealings. Of course, the 
El Paso business men didn’t like this duty—in 
fact, they hated it—but as it was established by 
custom they performed it uncomplainingly, and, 
as a matter of additional politeness went as far as 
their visiting friends in the way of having a good 
time. 

Thus, during the intensely busy years between 
1881 and 1904, when the doors of the “public” 
gambling houses and dance halls were closed for- 
ever, many of the prominent citizens of the town 
acquired an indirect interest in the operation of 
the communal dens of iniquity, and were thus un- 
able to lend their whole-hearted support to the 
closing movement. Their indignation had to be 
concealed. It was well enough for a man to 
agree with his wife when she said to him at the 
breakfast table: “George, dear, this is a hell of 
a place to raise children,” but it was an entirely dif- 
ferent matter when George got down to his office 
and checked up his books. ‘There he found that 
if the rent didn’t come in from the saloon build- 
ing that he owned on the corner, he wouldn’t be 
able to come across with that thousand dollar sub- 
scription to the new Methodist Church; that if 
Madame X and her girls didn’t pay for the gaudy 
gowns bought last month he couldn't settle for 


“Tor Ricgut THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 21 


the simple little things that his own girls, under- 
going a polishing treatment on the Hudson, said 
that they had to have; that if Old Man Taylor, 
the gambler, didn’t kick in with the agreed price 
for four corner lots, the wife couldn’t, during the 
coming social season, tilt her head at the right 
angle. 

Altogether, it was a difficult situation for Chris- 
tian men. It was met by turning it into a political 
issue. Vice entrenched itself for a siege and the 
reformers, few at first but strong in spirit, formed 
for the assault. It was a long and beautiful battle 
and at the end of ten years the reformers got the 
decision. After that the blonde heads of the ladies 
from Utah Street were no longer to be seen in the 
dress circle at the old Myar Opera House, dis- 
tracting the attention of the men from the play 
upon the stage; the whir of the roulette wheel and 
the rattle of the poker chip no longer called busy 
merchants from the barroom to the upper floor of 
the Gem Saloon, and the banging of the piano no 
more invited the transient cowpuncher and the itin- 
erant prospector into the caressing arms of the 
frescoed beauties of Louis Vidal’s dance hall. 
These things were gone, gone never to return! 
What took their place? 

They took their own place. That is to say, they 
took a legal but not a physical departure from the 
town. El Paso became, externally, very decorous, 
and the reformers, lay and clerical, proud that 
vice had been swept away, pulled down their white 
waistcoats and said in loud tones, “Let us render 


22 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


thanks!” For what? Simply for a coat of white- 
wash. But El Paso, unluckily, began to advertise 
its virtue far and wide, and so the rest of the 
world began to lose interest in the town. 


Between the years of 1904 and 1907 it blossomed 
out into the small metropolis phase of its career 
and the citizens began, hastily, to change their 
habits. With as much earnestness as they had 
before displayed in enjoying themselves in a free 
and unrestrained manner they set about learning 
how to live according to the rules which their wives, 
who were now taking annual trips back Kast, 
brought home and inserted into the family curric- 
ulum. Early in the game the leading business 
men took a great fall upward. Regular fellows, 
men who had been cowpunchers, had pounded 
drills, had weighed out chile and frijoles by the 
pound to nickel customers, and some even who had 
driven ice and butcher and grocery wagons and 
had learned to know the community through its 
back doors, suddenly found that the possession of 
virtue made it incumbent upon them to conduct 
their business from within the confines of private 
offices. This advance into obscurity made another 
step imperative. Dignity, hike youth, must be 
served, and there was one other thing, besides writ- 
ing letters and signing checks, which, according to 
the system now borrowed from Salt Lake City and 
Denver, Colo., the financial barons of the town 
must do away from prying eyes. That was their 
drinking. Public conviviality had become un- 


“Tre Ricut THING’ ON THE FRONTIER 23 


seemly and so these men who had for long, long 
years been in the habit of calling bartenders by 
their first names and doing most of their business 
with one foot on the rail got themselves together 
and began organizing clubs. For the first time 
the community made acquaintance with the post- 
prandial orator and with those other highly decora- 
tive municipal improvements, the club president, 
the club director and the club committeeman. Men 
who, a short fifteen years before, had been content 
to sit on their heels and roll their own while they 
conversed freely and openly with the world, now 
found themselves confined in a close pasture where 
etiquette demanded that they smoke perfectos at 
four bits a throw and associate only with other un- 
fortunates whose genealogies, like their own, were 
beginning to appear in the new issues of the herd 
books of Dun and Bradstreet. These poor men 
now shaved daily, boasted of the cold plunge every 
morning, changed their clothes by the clock, and 
began to play golf. This was the end. 





OGDEN: 


Tue UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 
By 
Bernard DeVoto 





OGDEN 


HE Overland Limited stops at Ogden for 
fifteen minutes. ‘The tourist, a little dizzy 
from altitude but grateful for trees after miles of 
desert, rushes out to change his watch and see a 
Mormon. He passes through a station that is a 
deliberate triumph of hideousness and emerges at 
the foot of Twenty-fifth Street. Beyond him are 
the peaks, the Wasatch at more than their usual 
dignity, but in the foreground are only a double 
row of shacks far gone in disintegration, stretching 
upward in the direction of the hills. The gutters, 
advertised as sparkling with mountain water, are 
choked with offal. The citizenry who move along 
the sidewalks are habituated to the shanties, but 
the newcomer, who whether from east or west be- 
lieves in a decent bluff of progress, is invariably 
appalled. What manner of folk, he wonders, what 
kind of Digger Indians, can suffer this daily as- 
sault upon the credo of Kiwanis? He thinks of 
the First National in Kokomo, or the Biltmore in 
Racine. He shudders. He hurries back to the 
train, pausing on the way to buy a postcard to 
which is attached a bag of table salt from Great 
Salt Lake. That at least is up to date. 
Robert Louis Stevenson, the one poet known to 
have passed through Ogden, faced these same shan- 
27 


28 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ties when they had withstood some forty fewer 
years of drouth. His only contribution to the 
booster-literature of the city was a note on the 
Chinese immigrants, who, he observed, displayed 
a far greater personal cleanliness than the natives. 

Lest an Ogden spirit be offended, let me make 
amends. It is true that the one new building on 
Twenty-fifth Street since 1900 is the Pullman por- 
ters’ club. But let us take the tourist blindfolded 
through the city, past the Cornville Center palaces 
of the wealthy and the bungalow-warrens of the 
bourgeoisie, to Ogden Canyon. Past that, still 
blindfolded against the Keep Kool Kamps and the 
Dewdrop Inns, to some ridge whence he may see 
the joists and rafters of a continent, with the city 
insignificant on the plain. Here he will see Ogden 
as it is, an oasis, a garden in the desert, with the 
peaks splendid above it—lines that sweep the eye 
irresistibly onward, distances and colors that carry 
the breath with them, the mountains in which the 
gods of the Utes walked in the cool of the day. 
For majesty, he will be willing to forget the 
measles of the street. 

Better still, let him arrive on one of the three 
or four midwinter days when the smoke has drifted 
westward and left the sky clean. Then, emerging 
in a heliotrope twilight, he will not see the shanties 
or the filth. The city is blotted out and there are 
only ridges deep in snow, saintly and whitened 
peaks with collars of mist half way down their 
slopes—mist slowly burning to its core of tourma- 
line, with sapphires winking at the edge. Night 


Tur UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 29 


brings its erasure of hideousness, the good folk ride 
homeward in the world’s worst trolleys, and pres- 
ently they are fed and stalled. But almost till the 
time they are abed, the eastern peaks, above their 
chasubles of mist, are luminous with a garnet flame 
that tints the snow against the night. Infinitely 
cold, the mist and the darkness; but warm the glow 
—a fire burning on the very hearth of heaven. 

But do not conclude, because the city is resolute 
in shabbiness beneath the peaks, that it is leading 
a schism from the faiths of Rotary and Mr. Bok. 
Its hideousness, its squalor, are no protest against 
The Ladies’ Home Journal. Your Ogdenite, in- 
stead, sees his city as those dreams come true. He 
peoples these streets with the chaos of State and 
Madison, lines them with Wrigley Twins, roofs 
them with elevateds. To him the Eccles Block is 
sixty stories high, and the constable at the corner, 
who is flapping a hand at three Fords and an Over- 
land, is waving back six rows abreast of Packards 
as far as the traffic towers stretch toward the Chi- 
cago River. 

Or if not now, at least by to-morrow noon. An 
idealist, he sees the illusion in front of the fact of 
dirt and mediocrity. A dreamer, he dwells for 
ever in the city of his hopes. Besides, when you 
come down to it, he asks, turning his back on the 
Broom Hotel, what city its size?—etc. Follows a 
list of statistics from the Weber Club, of mines and 
sugar beets, of warehouses and factories, of jobbers 
and railroads and farms. . . . And so on—a small 
backwater American city, less immaculate than 


30 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


most, less energetic, less comfortable, but at one 
with its fellows in drowsiness, in safety. 

Yet once, even the tourist must remember, once 
the frontier marched through Ogden with its char- 
iots and its elephants. Once there were demigods 
and heroes. Once there was desire and splendor— 
something of courage and adventure, something of 
battle, life a hot throbbing in the veins. Where 
now there are culture clubs and chiropractors, there 
‘ was a city shouting its male-ness to the peaks. 

For God’s sake let us sit upon the ground, and 
tell sad stories of the death of Roughnecks. 


Into the Mormon hegira of 1845-47 went much 
heroism, much genius, much suffering. And yet 
the Mormon was a prosaic fellow. His prophet 
had been martyred, he himself undertook the desert 
for religious freedom, he conquered the wilderness 
and, neighboring with the coyote, brought forth a 
state. And so on—the recital is familiar. Yet he 
did all this without humor and without imagination 
—did it with poverty-stricken realism, and above 
all with an intangible smugness, a bucolic megalo- 
mania, a self-righteousness which assured him that 
the Lord God Jehovah, whose hinder parts Moses 
and Joseph Smith had seen, watched over all his 
businesses and made them sound. 

So, for twenty years after their arrival in the 
desert, the Latter Day Saints practiced a religion 
of thrifty visions. They were such folk as would 
be attracted to such a religion. The Church, after 
settling all disputes that had racked Christendom 


Tur UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 31 


for nineteen centuries, made its own contributions 
to theology. It taught a plurality of gods, and, 
later, the opportunity for any Mormon to become a 
god. It gave its pious swineherds the power to in- 
terpret visions, to speak in tongues, to recognize 
and cast out devils, to hold conversations with an- 
gels. It taught the imminent end of the world; 
baptism of the dead; the evil of tobacco and cocoa; 
the true nature of ectoplasm; and much other ex- 
travagant nonsense. And, of course, it taught pol- 
ygamy. 

So much absurdity has been preached about this 
last doctrine, the only one associated with Mor- 
monism in the public mind, that the facts have been 
obscured. In Utah polygamy was practiced on an 
extensive scale only by Brigham Young, and a 
good third of his concubines were purely honorary, 
veterans of the hegira, widows of the prophet Jos- 
eph, or similarly decrepit alumnae who were 
awarded a fraction of his name as a sort of decora- 
tion. Only a few of the nobility practiced it at all, 
and they did so with not wholly unanimous felicity. 
Heber Kimball remarked, with a sincerity that 
touches the heart, that if God ever set a curse on 
him, it was wives. 

The truth is that polygamy was established to 
justify certain deplorable impulses of the prophet 
Joseph. The vigorous nature of Brigham Young 
was adapted to the opportunity thus created, and 
these precedents fastened the doctrine on the 
Church as the commandment of God, let him fol- 
low who might. The institution was breaking down 


32 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


of its own weight when the national government, 
by attacking it and rousing the always violent mar- 
tyr-complex of the Mormons, prolonged it beyond 
its time. And the reason for its decline, as we shall 
see, was the one reason whose cogency the Mormon 
Church has ever recognized. It was an economic 
mistake. It didn’t pay. 

For Brigham Young had left Nauvoo with a 
religion, but had established the State of Deseret 
with a commercial system. Here they were, in 
great Salt Lake City during these twenty years, 
planted on a desert, creating wealth, unhampered 
by interference. Mr. Werner has recently declared 
that Brigham’s genius for organization and finance 
entitles him to rank among the greatest minds of 
his century. At his death his private estate, built 
up from nothing, was worth three million, and while 
he was amassing this, he laid the foundations on 
which the Mormon Church has become the greatest 
financial power in the intermountain west. Such 
a man deserves mention with the Belmonts and the 
Goulds of his time. What Brigham might have 
done, given stockyards or railroads or steel plants, 
only those who know most about him are able to 
imagine. 

While he lived Brigham Young was Utah; it fol- 
lows that, during the first two decades of Salt Lake, 
he was the city. Fortunately, though the head of 
the most colorless of American heresies, Brigham 
was a man of color and power. In the midst of 
thousands of fanatics who had virtues in abundance 
but never a jot of imagination, he was one who 


THE UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 83 


easily caught fire. In a creed where any communi- 
cant of humor must have laughed himself into apos- 
tasy, he had humor—was the one Mormon in all 
the history of Mormonism who could laugh. 
Above all, he was energy. And the frontier, the 
frontier that stirs the heart, was only energy. Day 
by day he was driving more surely the stakes of 
Zion. Nor did he forget that a prophet deserves 
well of the church he is giving an inside track to 
heaven. The statutes of the early Territorial legis- 
latures are confined almost exclusively to granting 
Brigham Young the timber-rights of this canyon, 
the water-rights of that, the sawmill privileges here, 
the toll-gate privilege there. He builds houses, 
stores, bridges; he sells drygoods, flour, horses; he 
directs a theater; he invents apartments; he estab- 
lishes a university. When the Territory is sur- 
veyed and opened to homesteads, he builds a house 
on wheels which his pensioners set down where four 
section corners meet, and thus files on government 
land by wholesale. He has a finger in the invention 
of an alphabet, a purely Mormon language based 
on the one spoken in heaven and designed to crowd 
out the Gentile tongues on earth. He creates a 
Mormon currency, the “wooden money” of later 
Gentile sneers, and perhaps the one legal tender of 
all history based on the promises of Almighty God. 
He publishes a newspaper. He even organizes a 
sect of communists, who deed over to him as trus- 
tees in trust, the last run of their possessions—deeds 
conveying to him chickens and beds and underwear 
are on the records of Weber and Salt Lake coun- 


84 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ties. And all businesses in the valley have him as 
an active or a silent partner,—banks and barrooms, 
freight-companies and the mills that manufacture 
the holy union-suits of the faithful. 

In the midst of all this activity, he is watching 
over the souls of his Saints—and is a little troubled 
by them. Week by week he is thundering at them 
in the Tabernacle, roaring a diapason of wrath and 
praise, promising them triumph over the Gentiles 
or God-damning them as loafers. For the prophet 
had dwelt too long among the Gentiles and had ac- 
quired a certain vocabulary. In the “Journal of 
Discourses” these sermons are printed today, no 
less vigorous for being foul-mouthed, no less pro- 
ductive of piety for being Rabelaisian. Brigham, 
simply, could not express himself in other ways. 
Here before him was a crowd of Saints, honest men 
but so inferior to him that he seemed godlike, mul- 
ish and dull, incapable of seeing their own best in- 
terests, slow to see anything at all. He would, he 
said, infinitely rather kill a man than suffer him to 
lose his soul. On occasion, no doubt, he had the 
execution performed, but for the most part, swear- 
ing sufficed. 

For, in these meetings, you must remember, this 
bearded man was not merely Brigham Young the 
glazier and the millionaire, but was Brigham Young 
the seer and revelator, the vicegerent of God, whose 
words came down from heaven. Faces, ten thou- 
sand at a time, looked up at this little man, and 
saw what Christ had seen on the morning of Resur- 
rection. . . . This frontier Moses made annual pro- 


THE UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 35 


cessions across his domain. The cavalcade, with 
banners and outriders and bodyguard, with Amelia 
or perhaps several of the less favored wives, struck 
out across the territory. Everywhere children were 
scoured and ruffled and drilled to decorum. Young 
girls threw flowers—the blossoms of desert plants 
or the more cherished hollyhocks of the dooryard 
—beneath the wheels of the chariot, and sang their 
pious doggerels to this little man, who held one 
hand beneath his flatulence and nodded as he fan- 
cied God would nod. And old men and women 
hobbled back home, happy that they had lived an- 
other year to witness the passage of the holy one. 
“Tl say we got knives here as well as the boys 
in San Pete,” he had shouted last Sunday in the 
Tabernacle, referring to the irremediable humilia- 
tion of a young man who had looked too often on 
a maiden designed for his bishop. “Get out your 
knives, boys.” The Saints hearkened. This was 
the prophet of God, the practitioner of polygamy, 
telling them that they must not commit adultery. 
What Brigham aimed at was a commonwealth of 
Saints, wherein all labored for a common end, 
where the will of God and the prophets was law, 
and where the United States was a foreign power. 
For twenty years that was what he achieved. Now 
and then, some Saint’s voice was raised against the 
despotism: there was thunder in the ‘Tabernacle 
and a repentance or an exile. Sometimes, it must 
be remembered, there was even a corpse. The Mor- 
mons of to-day call the Danites a myth; no doubt 
they were, but there was Porter Rockwell, there 


386 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


was Bill Hickman, there was John D. Lee; the 
last, deserted by his church after the massacre it 
had directed, was shot beside his coffin. 

Gentiles came to the valley, forewarned. Some- 
times they set up their stores, sometimes offered 
merchandise below the prices of the Saints. Soon 
neat signboards appeared above the doors of the 
faithful—the all-seeing eye of God, sacred in 
Mormon symbolism, and above it “Holiness to the 
Lord.” And men loitered about. A Saint, ap- 
proaching the Gentile store, felt a tap on his 
shoulder. “Brother Brigham favors the Jones es- 
tablishment,” he was told. The Gentile came to 
terms. When he didn’t, when his tribe increased 
so far that it was cutting the ground from under 
the Church stores—for a bargain is a bargain even 
under the all-seeing eye—Brigham organized a 
chain, the Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institu- 
tion, which has grown into one of the largest of 
the Church’s immense properties—and licked the 
Gentiles once more. 

Governor, judge, and marshal—one by one they 
beat out their precedents and sovereignties against 
the little bearded man. They had from him smiles 
when he wanted to bestow them, but more often 
contumely. Cut-throats he called them, and em- 
bezzlers, and lick-spittles, and all opprobrious 
things. Every Sunday saw him in the Tabernacle 
reviling the governor, pouring out on him un- 
imaginable abuse. Always he won. Arrested, his 
own courts gave him habeas corpus. Denounced, 
he replied in kind. Ordered to submit to the 


Tur UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 37 


United States, he declared by proclamation that 
the territory was his to do with as he willed. Gov- 
ernor gave way to governor, all gladly, some made 
laughing-stocks, some disgraced. If their own 
foolhardiness did not betray them, it was always 
possible to trap them in a trumped-up brothel and 
so be rid of them. 

In Utah there was no power but Brigham. He 
was superior to the United States, not only by 
virtue of his agency from God, but actually by 
power of arms. So, when the United States sent 
an army against him, he outgeneralled the bril- 
lant Albert Sidney Johnston, burned his baggage, 
holed him up in winter quarters outside the Ter- 
ritory, and treated as an equal with the United 
States. The expedition, which cost the govern- 
ment some seven million dollars, added almost that 
much wealth, by auction and the spoils of war, 
to the victorious Church. . . . But it was Brigham 
at his darkest hour. Boasting to his followers that 
he would deliver Zion, he found out what it was 
to doubt in secret. The terms of peace allowed 
the troops to save their faces by marching through 
Salt Lake City and to build a camp some forty 
miles beyond. 

The Mormons had reason enough for their 
hatred of the United States, their prophecies 
against it, and their oaths of disaffection. If they 
had always met the government with treason, the 
government had always betrayed them. ‘The 
troops coming through Salt Lake City, who knew 
but they might have orders to shoot down all who 


38 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


got in their way, and generally to lay waste the 
Jerusalem the Saints had built up with their sweat 
in: the! desert? ys). 

That day the quickstep echoed through empty 
streets. No one was in sight, beyond an occa- 
sional Gentile waving his hat at a corner. The 
Mormon women and children were miles away, 
with their pottery and their blankets, and most 
of the men were with them. There, too, was 
Brigham in his chariot. Here and there about 
the city a Mormon was hidden, ready if need be 
to light the faggots that were piled behind the 
doors. Brigham, in valedictory, would bring the 
city down on the heads of its despoilers. 

For once this low-comedy prophet reached 
dramatic heights. Silent in his chariot, miles away 
from his Jerusalem, holding up his paunch with 
an arm, he was planning out his course if the city 
must be burned. Between the Mormons and the 
Americans must be war forever—as he had known 
for years even before the prophet Joseph collapsed 
over the windowsill at Carthage jail. No longer 
would he delude himself with hope of peace. He 
would lead his Church on a second flight, this 
time to the Canyon of the Colorado, to the bad- 
lands where an army could never penetrate. There 
he would conduct the feud without mercy forever- 
more—Mormon against American, to the death, 
while an ounce of powder remained to the faithful. 

The tragic heights subsided. The city, of course, 
was not burned. ‘The wives came back and the 
Sunday rhapsodies continued. Soon the troops 


THE UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 39 


were called back to a more extensive battlefield 
and not even a pretence of authority was kept 
over Brigham. As for the deathless feud—that, 
too, has been buried by the years, and for the best 
of Mormon reasons. It was useless extravagance. 
It didn’t pay. 


The colony at Ogden, thirty-five miles to the 
north, had been founded by divine command. 
Brigham thumbed through his tithing-lists, selected 
those who suited his purposes, and sent them off 
to plant another stake of Zion. So, during these 
years, Ogden was a scattering of log and adobe 
huts, well off the main currents of the frontier. 

There is much that is pathetic in the scene of 
these earnest Mormons going out to plough their 
alkali fields and bring down water from the hills 
in the name of God. There is more that is side- 
splitting. For, when you meditate on the piety 
of this persecuted breed, on this religion that led 
thousands across the desert, remember of what in- 
gredients that faith was made. Equal parts of 
smugness, ignorance, and superstition is the for- 
mula. Remember that the God of this Israel was 
a person very much in the likeness of Brigham 
Young, a fat old man with a bad temper, who used 
abominable English, who had begotten mankind 
by actual sexual congress with a polygamous 
harem of she-gods, and who had undertaken to 
deliver the earth into the hands of his anointed. 

That is where the earthly humor of Mormon- 
ism enters. These simple folk, who ploughed the 


40 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


desert under and out of the alkali brought forth 
bread, these tired, almost dehumanized men were 
Chosen People. They walked their furrows by 
day and lay down in their shanties by night con- 
fident that they were building brick by brick the 
new Jerusalem whence some day God and Joseph 
Smith and Brigham Young should direct the uni- 
verse. ‘These fences of cedar were really the 
bastions of a new earth. These poplar barns were 
the granaries of the Lord, incrusted with pearls. 
These trickles of white water—were they not piped 
from the four rivers of Paradise? 

The frontier passed them by, thirty-five miles 
to the southward. Through Salt Lake City went 
the pageantry of the American folk-wandering. 
Through Salt Lake City streamed the Forty- 
Niners, hellbent for California, with their wash- 
bowls on their knees. They swarmed their hour 
about Brigham’s boulevards, bartered their lux- 
uries for staples at extortionate rates, and hurried 
on. The Church made a good thing of them, as it 
had of the Mexican War before them. In their 
wake came the Overland Mail, with its Concord 
stages thundering into town behind a dozen mules, 
captained by men of a grandeur not to be equalled 
off the deck of a Mississippi packet. Followed 
the second great mining stampede, to Virginia 
City this time, and another wave of violent men, 
swaggering their male-ness down avenues dedi- 
cated to God and God’s dollars. After that, the 
pony express, following the stage-route, a venture 
that bankrupted its backers but gave the West its 


LG8L NI ‘AYOLINYAL HVLOA ‘AGIO AMV WIvs 











Tuer UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION Al 


most colorful legend—a legend of galloping 
hoofs, foamy flanks, and the halloo of a rider who 
was swallowed up by dust or darkness as soon 
as he was seen. 

All this energy, all this restlessness and aspira- 
tion, streamed through Salt Lake City, under the 
eyes of Brigham who saw in it the end of his isola- 
tion, perhaps, but also an immediate source of 
profit. Ogden it passed by. Ogden was a settle- 
ment of pious Mormons who tilled their fields and 
obeyed the prophet, who looked at the mountains 
but saw the meadows of Jerusalem. 

And then word came that the Pacific Railroad 
was not disposed to adopt the prophet’s sugges- 
tion. “Why,” said the engineers, “should we 
build over an extra divide merely to get to Salt 
Lake City when we can follow a water-level route 
through Weber Canyon?’ And Weber Canyon 
debouched a mile or so from Ogden. ‘Then sud- 
denly there was a freight-line from Zion, and a 
little later came the surveyors from the east and 
from the west. Then a new goldfield, poised 
on the present boundary between Idaho and 
Wyoming, opened up. An adventurous Gentile 
made a trail to it, shortened its line of supplies 
two hundred miles, and the first affluence Ogden 
had ever seen began. 

There were two streets—then three, then four. 
Saloons came, bringing progress—bright lights, 
tablecloths, store shirts, flowered vests, the eti- 
quette of the Colt. The miners came, and scarlet 
women; such women as Ogden had never seen. 


42 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Women with laces and silks, with rouge and rice 
powder. Women who were all that Mr. Service 
has declared their Alaskan sisters to be, but who 
brought civilization to this cowpath settlement. 
Women who, it may be, troubled the souls of their 
Mormon sisters. For Mark Twain, looking im- 
partially.at the evidence, has said that a man who 
married one Mormon woman was a hero and a 
man who married a dozen of them was a large- 
scale benefactor of the human race. 

Strange sights by day in the streets that had 
seen nothing more extraordinary than a drove of 
pigs. Ox teams by the dozen plodding ahead of 
a freighter’s wagon with seven-foot wheels and a 
bullwhacker snaking his whip above their ears. 
Mules singly or in tandem packed with the out- 
fits of prospectors, their owners trudging in their 
dust. Gamblers, settlers, bartenders, Mexicans, 
Chinks, remittance men. And by night what 
sounds! In the saloons, the roar of good men 
singing, the fellowship of males, the debate of a 
hundred disputants at once, each one an authority. 
Above them the seduction of fiddles where the 
women consorted with their prey. In the streets, 
strayed revelers taking the long way home, the 
clop-clop of horses as belated ones arrived, the 
click of dice, sometimes the voice of the Colt... . 
It was a little different from discussions as to the 
true nature of Satan’s fur, or from the hymns 
with which the Mormon dances had begun. Sin 
had come to Ogden. 

And now descended on Ogden the Hartigans 


THE UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 43 


and the McCarthys and the Flahertys. Through 
the mouth of Weber Canyon, racing against its 
ten-mile day and the Chinks of the C. P., the 
Union Pacific burst like a spring flood. Now 
came Hell on Wheels to Mormonry. 

Not long did it pause, this mobile terminal, but 
never again would righteousness be quite the same. 
The Irish roared and sang and hammered, like 
happy devils assaulting the earth, and laid their 
steel and passed on. On to Corrine they went, 
on to Promontory Point, and met the Chinks and 
sniped at them from behind ties or seized them 
bodily, when the scientific spirit was strong, and 
took them apart. Those last eighty miles of rail- 
road building, both companies roaring for land and 
fame, were a romancer’s dream of strength and 
trickery and violence. They ended; dignitaries 
came to drive their golden spike; and the Central 
Pacific built on into Ogden any way, in the hope 
that it could swindle the government of fifty thou- 
sand acres more. And the Irishmen all came 
back. 

For Ogden was now a railroad town. ‘Those 
who had swung picks, fought Indians, and sniped 
at Chinks, would now undertake to keep the U. 
P.’s cars on its tracks. A race of men, these. For 
the most part Union veterans, they were old be- 
fore their youth was done; their arms were like 
the girders of the bridges they built; and they, 
who had tamed spring rivers and battened rails 
across the spine of a continent, were afraid of 
neither God nor devil. Still less were they afraid 


4A THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


of men who were anointed to hold converse with 
both. 

It was Porter Rockwell who learned as much 
soon after the first roundhouse was built at Ogden 
—Porter Rockwell, mysterious emissary of 
Brigham, who, if he performed one-tenth of the 
murders attributed to him had disposed of more 
Gentiles than Brigham had married wives. 
Bearded and very hard was Porter Rockwell, a 
man to set strong men wailing in their dreams, 
a man who had publicly allowed that the temple 
union-suit he wore, blessed by Brigham, would 
turn any bullet ever fired by Gentile. He was 
strolling down Spring Street one day, newly come 
from mysteries of retribution, and he was listen- 
ing to the earth quake in terror of his passing. 
Appeared now one twisted Flannigan, deplorably 
gone in drink. 

“Are ye Port Rockwell?” the half-size Irish- 
man demanded. The strong right arm of Brigham 
nodded. “Then by God, y’are the man whose un- 
derwear will turn bullets, and I’m called of God 
to put it to the proof. ’Tis a revelation, y’under- 
stand, to speak accordin’ to Mormon.” 

In something less than a second Porter Rock- 
well was on his knees in Ogden’s dust, and had 
swallowed five inches of steel barrel. For ten 
minutes the railroader marched round him, dic- 
tating enormous obscenities about Brigham 
Young for his victim to acclaim, and then marched 
him off down the street for exhibition, the Colt 
prodding his pants. 


THe UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION A5 


Ogden was frontier. From Salt Lake Brigham 
built his railroad, the Utah Central, to connect 
with the U.P., and from Ogden northward into his 
Idaho dominions as the Utah Northern. One 
landboom after another rocketed city lots. The 
land agent came, and with him both fortune and 
bankruptcy. Northward the freighters sent their 
cavalcades, long files of wagons under the white- 
gold cloud of dust, creaking of axles and grunt of 
oxen, oaths and laughter—the strain and vigor of 
life. 

Came too, not only Bret Harte’s gambler, but 
his aristocratic cousin, the confidence man, of der- 
ringer and long-tailed coat, who worked the pas- 
senger trains and fleeced his traveling companions 
at faro or sold them mountain peaks or rivers or 
franchises to build ferries in the desert. The good 
and the great came, to see what the railroad was 
doing in the waste places. And now that other 
symbol of the west began to come,—the 
cowboy making his long drive northward from 
Texas, his face hidden in his bandana, his lungs 
choked with alkali. Ogden was as far west as 
the Long Trail ever came, as far west as the 
dionysiac joy of the buckaroo ever set the peaks 
echoing. 

One and all they made their way from bar to 
bar but ended at the Chapman House. French 
Pete, other and true name unknown, was the 
civilizing influence that turned many a man 
toward the arts. Here is a menu of French Pete’s, 
preserved to this smaller age. Turtle soup, 


46 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


crackers; mountain trout, Columbia river salmon, 
oysters San Francisco; antelope steak, shoulder of 
venison, beef Chicago; breasts of sage hen, prairie 
chicken in cream, quail, mourning doves, Canada 
goose; southern yams in candy, peas, celery, wa- 
tercress, potatoes O’Brien; hot biscuits, corn- 
pone; honey, watermelon, peaches and cream. ‘The 
little slip indicates that one was expected, not to 
make a choice from this ecstasy, but to down it 
all from the first to the last. ‘The other side is an 
equally heroic list; cocktails named after railroad 
presidents, Indian chiefs, and mining camps; 
punches, cordials, highballs, fizzes, rickies, Juleps; 
it ends, “Irish whiskey, fifteen cents a glass.” And 
one line reads, “Champagne: California, $1.00. 
Imported, $2.00.” A pint? No, a half-gallon. 

To the Chapman House came the mining and 
railroad millionaires, the Einglish cattle-barons, 
actors and singers making continental tours, and 
more than one princeling from Graustark or 
beyond. The register, if it could be recovered, 
would be a miniature history of the frontier. Per- 
haps most curious of its names would be the curtly 
signed “Bill.” This was Rattlesnake Bull, who 
came for some weeks twice or thrice a year, to eat 
the savories of French Pete, and to sit for hours 
on the upper veranda, smoking, chatting, looking 
down at Fifth Street or out at the shadows deep- 
ening on the peaks. 

Innumerable legends cluster about this man of 
the white sombrero above the long black curls. No 
one ever ventured to ask his name. No one knew 


THE UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION A 


whence came the money that clad and housed him 
so magnificently. One heard that he was a Mason 
sent to murder Mormons, that he owned a secret 
bonanza surpassing the Comstock Lode, that he 
was successively all the desperadoes who plun- 
dered the mines and the mail, that he was the 
illegitimate son of a British prince and once a 
month received an order on the royal exchequer. 
He had killed, one understood, his dozen; he had 
led men on desperate piracies beyond the hills; he 
had said to men in New York, in China, or in 
London, “Do this,” and it was done. 

But there he sat, smoking cigars that were never 
bought in Ogden, telling stories to the Chapman 
children, and bowing to men and women who 
counted his nod an accolade. Once a year he con- 
tributed to Catholic, Mormon and _ Protestant 
Churches; and at Christmas time all railroad men 
on duty and all wayfarers fed at his expense on 
French Pete’s cooking. He died one night in the 
Chapman House, of an apoplexy. No papers 
were found in his buffalo trunk. But there were 
books there: Childe Harold, a Shakespeare, sev- 
eral originals of Voltaire, and a volume of strange 
devices which pious Saints believed to be the orig- 
inal of the Book of Mormon, which would have 
made Bill the angel Moroni. But it proved to be 
only a sixteenth century Odyssey, whose ex libris 
had been obliterated. 

Near the Chapman House was Gentile Kate’s 
brothel, incomparably the leader of its kind. Kate 
was herself a respected part of the business life 


} 


4S THe TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


of the town, a speculator in real estate, the most 
liberal customer of the stores; she was, too, an 
unofficial great lady. When a railroad dignitary 
or a visiting Cabinet member was to be banqueted, 
she was always bidden to provide conversation and 
fine raiment above the reach of Ogden. No one 
was ever swindled at her establishment; no one 
was ever disorderly there, twice. A person of 
dignity was Gentile Kate, and of more than a 
little wit. But her annoyance was Mormons— 
perhaps because she disliked their colorlessness, 
perhaps because she felt that their multiple mar- 
riages were sabotage against her profession, per- 
haps because she had knowledge of certain patri- 
archs and bishops who, by day, denounced her in 
their meeting-houses. Doing almost a bank’s busi- 
ness in loans and mortgages, she never lent a 
penny to a Mormon; and the one unladylike ex- 
pression in her vocabulary coupled a vivid gene- 
alogy with the name of Joseph Smith. 

Early in her career, Brigham Young died of 
overeating, and soon there was an auction of his 
effects. Of late years he had taken to parading 
the streets of Salt Lake in a new carriage—a 
barouche made for him in the East. One sees the 
picture: Brigham at his portliest, at his most be- 
nignant, leaning back in the wine-colored cush- 
ions, one arm bracing his paunch, his eyes stray- 
ing over the multitudes who uncovered and bowed 
their heads as the right hand of God went by. An 
equipage of splendor, behind gray stallions, on 
one side the all-seeing eye, carved and glistening, ° 


Tur UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 49 


on the other side the beehive of Deseret, and on 
the rear the angel Moroni ascending to heaven 
from audience with Joseph Smith. But only a 
carriage, after all. 

The Utah Central, one day, bore it up to Og- 
den. Next day, behind the same gray stallions, 
bearing the same insignia of Mormonry, it rolled 
up and down the streets of Ogden, and haughty 
in its cushions was Gentile Kate. 


Meanwhile, following the Irish, other people 
were settling in Ogden, putting up their stores, 
shipping their freight to the multitudes of little 
towns that had germinated in the railroads’ wake. 
Much money was being made in Ogden—and this, 
as it was Gentile money, gravelled the Mormon’s 
souls. Now begins the last protracted struggle, 
between the faithful and the damned. As always, 
it gave the Mormon more than his native color. 
Unmolested, he is only a fanatic worshiping out- 
rageous gods; but fighting the Gentile, he is laved 
with all the high-lights of martyrdom and sanctity 
and desperation. Brigham Young was dead, but 
behind the figureheads of the presidency was 
George Q. Cannon, who was scarcely less a gen- 
eral. 

Politics had served the Church well in [llinois; 
perhaps the Mormon ability to cast ten thousand 
votes as one might help out now. For a dozen 
years the battle waged unequally—centered, of 
course, in Ogden where alone the Gentiles might 
make a stand. ‘The town began to glow. Its 


50 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


somnolent avenues to-day bear no hint that they 
have witnessed emotions no less intense than those 
that followed Bloody Mary about her realm. 
They were for the most part bloodless, but were 
no less bitter; only, the Irish kept them on the 
comic side. Your Mormon, battling at Arma- 
geddon for his dollar, is no light-minded man; he 
regards levity as the sin against the Holy Ghost; 
his god, as the god of this world, centers his inter- 
est in cash, wherefore to be else than solemn is to 
risk hell. But the Irish, who had created and 
obliterated the frontier, were less awed. 

A merry decade it was, these ten years of the 
People’s Party and the Liberal Party—ten years 
of plot and counterplot, of stuffed ballot boxes 
and bribed judges, of scandals built to order and 
set off at the right moment; of broken heads, of 
oratory and defiance. From Mormon pulpits 
streamed curses that had for their model the chap- 
ters of Deuteronomy which raise cursing to an art. 
From Irish bar-rooms streamed the laughter of 
men. Sometimes a Gentile Machiavelli was set 
upon by night in an alley and his head was bashed. 
Sometimes one was bought outright or another 
caught with the goods. In the last case he would 
be tried by Mormon jury before a Mormon judge, 
with his comrades—who wasted no sympathy on 
a man who could get caught—swearing him into 
centuries of prison. 

Sometimes a madness would come upon the 
Irish, and they would go out for entertainment. 
Bishop Jones, hurrying to priesthood meeting, 


Tur UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 51 


would find himself captive to a dozen brawlers 
who would, perhaps, drag him to the new steam 
laundry, strip him, and immerse him in a vat of 
soap with lewd parodies of the Temple ordinances. 
Did he believe Brigham Young had taken to wife 
Semiramis and Cleopatra and the Queen of 
Sheba? Down with him into the suds! Did he 
expect to beget souls in heaven? Let the soap 
cover him! And so on till the bishop, recanting 
Mormonism, precept by precept, emerged a bishop 
of the black mass. 

_ They went forth to battle, these Irish, but they 
always died. Till one November the auguries 
pointed the other way and the Irish swaggered 
down the middle of the streets. Election day saw 
two machines perfected. One by one, in the out- 
lying districts where no Gentiles lived, the Mor- 
mons filed in, voting for themselves, for their 
wives, their children, their great grandparents, and 
the legions they had taken to wife in celestial mar- 
riage. A Gentile election-judge nodded jovially 
and called them by their first names. All day long 
till the polls closed. Then, out of nowhere, came 
rigs galloping; hard men descended on the polls, 
lifted the ballot box, and disappeared with the 
Gentile judge. Down the Weber and Ogden 
rivers flowed streams of ballots sanctified by the 
Lord’s chosen. 

Word had reached the Liberal headquarters 
that special trains had come up from Salt Lake 
City and that the Mormons were voting all the 
names on the tombstones. Headquarters grinned 


52 Tut TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


and consulted watches. <A special arrived from as 
far north as the Idaho line—and northward there 
were only Mormons, The upper floor of the city 
hall filled with a reserve to be called into action 
ten minutes before the polls closed. A Gentile 
leader made to go up the stairs. No less a man 
than Porter Rockwell, now aging, and soon to 
die, tapped him on the shoulder. 

“My orders,” Porter said, “is to shoot anybody 
that goes up them stairs.” 

The Gentile nodded and beckoned two deputy 
marshals who happened, very casually, to be 
standing nearby. “Your orders,’ he informed 
them, “is to shoot anybody that comes down them 
stairs.” 

An hour before the polls closed all the locomo- 
tives in the railroad yards began to whistle. Two 
specials roared in from Echo, Wasatch, Evans- 
ton, and points east. How many Irish clambered 
down from cars and roofs and tenders history 
does not estimate. But they streamed uptown and 
began to vote. ‘They voted the payrolls of the 
U.P., the registers of the Chapman House and 
the Broom Hotel, the tax-lists of Evanston, and 
every other document that bore names. Then, re- 
versing first and last names, they voted again. ... 

That night the planets knew that Gentile Og- 
den was delivered from the oppressor’s heel. How 
much firework was burned, how much firewater 
drunk, it is a melancholy business to calculate. 
The peaks gave back shriekings until dawn. And 
at dawn a cowboy who had been making his first 


Tue UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 53 


visit to Ogden was discovered setting up a sign 
on a hill some miles from the city. 

“Ogden City,” the sign read. “Ogden City. 
Hotter than Hell and the Hottest Place ‘This 
Side of Hell.” 

About this time, too, the Mormons achieved 
their last moment of dignity. Persistently they 
had agitated Statehood, to remove the congres- 
sional supervision exercised under the Territory. 
Persistently their hamstringing of governors and 
their practice of polygamy had stood in their way. 
The Liberal victory pricked them to greater ef- 
forts, but coincidently, the propaganda of Gentile 
sects became effective and the Kdmunds-Tucker 
bill, the first anti-polygamy measure with teeth, 
passed Congress. At once the Mormons found 
themselves helpless, once more martyrs, once more 
hunted, once more without civil rights. Church 
property was confiscated, all who practiced poly- 
gamy were placed without the law, and all who 
would not disavow it were disfranchised. The 
government had them where the hair was short. 

For a moment, then, the familiar Mormon 
frenzy of martyrdom. Mass-meetings of women 
all over the Territory resolved their ardor for 
polygamy—a phenomenon to be explained not so 
much by a woman’s preference for one-tenth of a 
superior man to a whole lout, as by the priest- 
hood’s Mohammedan domination over its women. 
Mormon leaders, with a price on their heads, dis- 
appeared into the desert. In Ogden there was 
secret traffic by night, riders going out from son 


54 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


in control to father in hiding, other riders follow- 
ing them to head off pursuit. The pulpits 
flamed with their old-time hatred of the United 
States. 

A moment of tragedy, a moment when God 
seemed to be testing his chosen with the fire that 
had tried their fathers, a moment that seemed 
bound to repeat the catastrophe of Nauvoo, 
when the Church, without leaders, money or sup- 
plies, was driven out to face the desert. Only this 
time there was not even a desert; Israel could 
not isolate itself from Babylon, but must be scat- 
tered piecemeal and destroyed, all for the purest 
motive man ever defended, for religious faith. So 
there was peering into darkness, heartbreak, reso- 
lution, and despair.... The last downstage 
tableau of the Saints. 

But only for a moment. The stuff of Mor- 
monry had grown both weaker and wiser. Re- 
member Brigham, fulminating his defiance of the 
government, stationing men with torches in his 
forsaken city, resolved to lead his Church to the 
Canyon of the Colorado and there fight the United 
States unto the end. Mormonry had changed: it 
could now contemplate the destruction of a dogma 
without shudders, but the loss of property was 
something else. It recalled that when Brigham 
had opposed the Gentiles with force he had often 
been menaced and sometimes licked, whereas no 
one in history had ever beaten him in a business 
deal... . 

It is recorded that those in authority who 


Tuer UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 55 


favored the trial by battle were looked on by the 
rest with a certain wild impatience, as men who 
had not penetrated the symbolism of God’s truth. 
So presently polygamy was repealed, not by 
revelation but by declaration of inexpediency, and 
except for old fogies tottering with their harems 
to the grave, it is now obsolete. 

It is a doctrine still, now made intricate with 
years of rationalization, but it is taught the young 
Saints as an ordinance to be practiced hereafter 
in those days to come when all men are made per- 
fect, when the Saints dwell like gods with their 
grandfathers and their grandsons, when Brigham 
and Joseph come back with their wives and take 
their proper stations somewhere between the first 
and second members of the Trinity. The latest 
President of Israel treats those suspected of be- 
lieving too currently in plural marriage with the 
ferocity his predecessors reserved for rival revela- 
tions. He is right. Any effort to bring polygamy, 
from the hereafter to the now is bad business. It 
doesn’t pay. And, in the end, for Mormonry, 
there is no other test for truth. 

So vanished the last energy of Utah, of Salt 
Lake City and of Ogden. Why should Israel 
longer fight Gentiles with politics? Why should 
it longer retain beliefs which meant a money loss? 
Why should it indulge itself with martyrdom, the 
most extravagant of all waste? After all, the 
father’s house held many mansions and the vic- 
tory promised the Saints could be worked out in 
the most formidable of them, the counting-house. 


56 Toe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


And so it was. Mormon organization, a priest- 
hood whose function is ambivalent, a communistic 
system directed by a tight oligarchy, the religious 
force harnessed to economic machines—all these 
have, in thirty years, brought Israel into its king- 
dom. Your Mormon dwells in peace and broth- 
erly love with his Gentile neighbor, for intolerance 
and warfare lost money—they didn’t pay. He 
fights no more political or social battles—they 
wasted money in the old days. In 1917, instead 
of Brigham’s vilification of the government as of 
1861, and his prayers for the success of the South, 
the Church oversubscribed its Liberty Loan 
quotas and outdid New England in hatred of the 
Teuton. For patriotism pays. 

The Mormon has done well. There are no Mor- 
mon poor. The Church looks after its own. The 
“peculiar people” have a stranglehold on the 
wealth of the intermountain region. God’s prom- 
ises have been certified. 'The underwriters of sal- 
vation have made good. Even the religion tends 
toward Rotary: you must dig through many 
layers of rationalism and defence before you get 
at the awkward gods, the taboos, and the ignor- 
ance at the core. For color of history or of per- 
son, for individuality and all such strange, un- 
Mormon impulses—these, too, do not pay. 


That is why the tourist, singling out his Mor- 
mon bishop for identification, is most likely to 
pick out the high-church rector of St. Luke’s. 
That is why the real Mormon bishop looks lke a 


Tur UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 57 


bank-director; he is one. ‘That is why to-day a 
Mormon is indistinguishable from a Gentile in 
Ogden. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter 
Day Saints has come into its own; it has inherited 
the promised land, the promised power, the prom- 
ised glory. It has won its battle; it has tamed 
its cities; it has delivered its enemies into slavery. 

In all things. . . . Only, of course, victory car- 
ries with it its own sequela. Mormonry, let it be 
said, once more, is a religion of this earth, a deifi- 
cation of produce and merchandise and high inter- 
est. And naturally it has reaped in kind. The 
Ogden of to-day, we have noticed, is hideous, in- 
tolerably. The life that goes on behind its dingy 
walls is no less so. No less so in Salt Lake City 
or in the uttermost parts of the State. 

The bishop of an Ogden ward—‘ward” is the 
appropriate Mormon term for parish—was pre- 
senting to his church a picture which one of his 
flock had painted to the glory of his people. Save 
for the halo round Brigham’s head, the smear 
might have been torn from a billboard advertising 
Camels. And wholesome awe was in that bishop’s 
voice. 

“Brother Sorenson tells me,” said Bishop Jor- 
genson, “that the materials in this painting cost 
him less than six dollars. If he had not wanted to 
give it over to the Church, he could have sold it 
for fifty dollars. That, my brethren, is how it 
pays to get an education for the glory of your 
Church.” The congregation sang its hymn of 
praise. A young priest in the back row sighed, 


58 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


and surreptitiously putting on his shoes went to 
the table to bless and distribute the sacrament. ... 
The mountains all about, one would think, 
ought to bring something of splendor into the 
lives of those who live among them, something of 
poignancy, of beauty. Here about the Chosen 
People are extravagance and excess of beauty— 
why, then, has it never worked its way into their 
hearts? Well, the Church was first enlisted and 
has ever since been increased from the bankrupt 
fringe, from the very dregs of foreign and domes- 
tic society. Neither artists nor their patrons 
flourish among such folk. And then, a man who 
can believe in the pathological god of Joseph 
Smith and who must worship him after the mer- 
cantile manner of Brigham Young, such a man 
has little understanding of beauty or refinement 
and no patience with them. ‘They do not pay. 
Talent, by biological aberration, does sometimes 
arise here in Ogden. A child is born with a voice, 
with a gift for the stage, the violin, or the brush. 
The Church is kind to him. However modest his 
circumstances, he is sent to conservatories or to 
dramatic schools or wherever else training may be 
had for him. And in due time he is brought back 
to drill the faithful in singing “O, My Father,” or 
to teach their children how to paint sago lilies in 
their sketches of the prophet Joseph talking to the 
angel Moroni. I do not deny that the Mormons 
have an art. They have the most appalling art 
this side of the Australian bush (where they now 
proselyte), and it is practiced for the glory of the 


Tuer UNDERWRITERS OF SALVATION 59 


Church as was the art that reared the cathedrals 
of F’rance. Cooperative competition for the glory 
of the Church and the profit of its rulers is the 
Mormon formula. So the child who can recite 
“The Village Blacksmith” gets a point for his 
ward in the monthly standing; his sister, by set- 
ting a stanza of Eliza Snow’s doggerel to some- 
thing resembling music, may get five points for the 
ward, thereby equalling Annie Christopherson, of 
the next ward, who during the week invented a 
new way of making cake without eggs. 

And, asks the bishop, is there any other worthy 
kind of art? Does any other art make us better 
Mormons? Does it make us more efficient? Does 
it add to the stature of the Church? 

So the Mormons have dwelt their eighty years 
among the mountains and never seen them. And, 
because they have won their battle, they have kept 
the Gentiles from seeing them as well. . . . Down 
the streets of Ogden to-day go the Mormon Buicks 
and the Gentile Fords, equally intent on the mat- 
ter at hand. No dominant energy is apparent. 
The frontier is buried deep beneath this crumbling 
asphalt. By day or night there is no dust of mule 
teams, no roar of miners’ chorus or shout of Irish 
going forth against the Chink or the Mormon. 
Even the transient color of the tourist flees away. 

Why not? Since frontiers must fall Ogden 
could not be Hell on Wheels for ever. Not even 
its ghosts will walk for it but emigrate westward 
to Hollywood where at times they lift another 
squalid art to moments of insight. And if Ogden 


60 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


is not an American city, if it will not bustle or 
erupt, if it is dingy and penurious and sleeping— 
why, for that too it has a recompense. It is an 
outpost of the New Jerusalem, concentrated on 
the things that pay. 

Wherefore some day all cities will bend their 
heads in its direction while the skies open to sud- 
den thunder and St. Brigham and St. Joseph 
Smith Jun., sharing between them Helen of Troy 
and all dead, aphrodisiac ladies, come down to 
chain the devil and populate the earth with Mor- 
mon robots. 


DENVER: 


WASHED WHITER N SNOW 
By 
George Looms 





DENVER 


IRTUE being a symbol may occasionally be 
fashioned out of flimsy material. Civic 
virtue differs in no wise in this respect from indi- 
vidual virtue. Its tailor is the press agent and his 
work has been known to be undependable. Some- 
times he knowingly works with shoddy. 

This brief is for the virtue of Denver, Colorado. 
And disregarding the straight and narrow styles 
of repute which her tailormen have fashioned for 
her it may be interesting to catch a surreptitious 
glimpse of her nude civic body even at a risk of 
being caught by a Grundy and subsequently dis- 
graced. Such a glimpse can never be enjoyed 
with sufficient leisure, for one can never know 
when some one hundred per cent American may 
come up behind and catch him by the scruff of his 
neck and perform the conventional practice upon 
his nether portion. However, no risk, no profit, 
and little pleasure. 

Denver was born on two sides of Cherry Creek 
in 1858. For over a year she enjoyed two names 
and two identities; she was both Auraria and 
Denver City. Accounts differ as to who her nat- 
ural father was, hence it might appear that she 
was born out of wedlock. 

The deduction is probably correct. Cities are 

63 


64 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


legitimately born of an idea out of a situation. In 
the case of Denver the idea was a fake, the situa- 
tion a jade and the union surreptitious. The idea 
was that there was enough gold in Cherry Creek 
to warrant a national pilgrimage. ‘The situation 
was a great body of flat prairie infested with tum- 
ble weed, prairie dogs and cactus plants. The as- 
signation was with malicious intent and from the 
union came a city that has since grown to a fine 
and lusty maturity of nearly three hundred thou- 
sand souls. 

But for nearly a year it seemed that the puny 
and unwanted offspring would succumb to malnu- 
trition. Mother situation was dry as dry and she 
had been betrayed by a lover who had no visible 
means of support. The washings of gold in Cherry 
Creek were so meagre that they did not yield the 
visiting miner more than sixty or seventy cents a 
day at the maximum. So in the latter part of 
1858 and in the early weeks of 1859 there they 
were, twin cities nursing at the public font and 
getting no nourishment to speak of. But on May 
the sixth, 1859, to use the same figure, a foster 
father was found for the infant civic idea in the 
guise of a very rich vein of rotten quartz up in 
Gregory Gulch about thirty miles to the north- 
west and the family problem was solved. 

Men came across the plains, six, seven and eight 
hundred miles to aid the new idea and also to line 
their pockets. ‘They came with attendant hard- 
ship. They came from less romantic environments 
but they brought the imprint of rigid social order. 


WasHEeD WHITER’'N SNOW 65 


In the main the Ten Commandments had been 
popular with them. But the physical demands of 
the trip proved to be so tremendous that the more 
ephemeral notions managed to dissipate and upon 
arrival it was found that only the more rugged 
symbols of righteous conduct had survived. Arti- 
cles six and eight of the Mosaic code were the 
only ones to reach Cherry Creek in any sort of 
working condition to speak of. Forbidding man- 
slaughter and larceny as they do they form the 
binder of all known types of social mixture. They 
were at once incorporated into and strengthened 
by an immediate practice. 

Men came to Denver in those years at great 
hazard to their skins. The two largest ideas on 
their horizons were to keep those skins whole and 
accumulate wealth. The latter had been the initial 
urge; the former had acquired stature through the 
austerity of that six hundred mile trek across the 
plains. Hence, to the pioneer, the two unspeak- 
able crimes in his decalogue were to kill him or 
to deprive him of his vision. 

Denver in those days was a part of Kansas 
Territory, but Kansas was not so vigorous then as 
now and her long arm did not reach to her ex- 
tremities to alleviate any paltry itch. So Auraria 
and Denver City attended to such irritations lo- 
cally. And they did so with thoroughness and 
dispatch. 

The first record of community enterprise seems 
to be in connection with one Moses Young, Es- 
quire, whose early personal history is incomplete. 


66 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


On March 13th. Young met William West on the 
mountain side of Cherry Creek between Larimer 
and Market Streets and emptied fifteen buckshot 
from his weapon into West’s body for no good 
civic reason. He was caught the next day, not 
having travelled far; tried by a gentlemen’s court 
and found guilty. The same gentlemen hanged 
him forty-eight hours later with the same sense 
of detachment. 

On March 30th, John Rooker and Jack O’Neil 
agreed to settle a difference of opinion in a dark 
room with bowie knives. ‘The news of the intended 
affray was circulated and much interest was 
aroused. But at the eleventh hour Rooker devel- 
oped a weak stomach and O’Neil indulged in the 
obvious repartee at his expense. It stirred Rooker 
to desperation, for the assault upon his good name 
involved to some extent the repute of his im- 
mediate progenitors. Westerners always have 
been particularly sensitive to this type of criticism; 
so when the two men met shortly thereafter in a 
popular drinking resort Rooker shot O’Neil dead. 
Inasmuch as the act did not violate the civie ex- 
pectations, it having been advertized that one life 
at least should forfeit by previous legal contract, 
Rooker was not thought to have done wrong and 
was duly acquitted. 

John Stoefel, a Hungarian, had followed a 
brother-in-law, Thomas Biencroff, across six hun- 
dred miles of prairie with the purpose of acquiring 
title to the latter’s earthly plunder which, judged 
by present standards, was hardly worth the trip. 


WasHED WHITER N SNOW | 67 


On April 7th., 1859, Stoefel slew Biencroff with 
an ax messily and injudiciously, injudiciously in 
that he made no effort to destroy the clews. Per- 
haps he was overconfident and did not realize the 
solidity of the apparently loose social mixture of 
Denver City. On April 7th came the murder. On 
April 7th Stoefel was apprehended. On April 
7th he received a trial by his peers. And on April 
7th he was hanged from a cottonwood tree on 
Cherry Creek, thereby establishing a record and 
a precedent. 

_He stood in a wagon with a minister and an 
executioner, the latter known in Denver City as 
“Long Tom.” There was a short prayer in which 
the minister and “Long Tom” took part, both 
kneeling. Stoefel stood, numbed. Upon arising, 
“Long Tom” kicked Stoefel in the ribs and asked 
him if he didn’t know better than to act like a 
heathen. The two ends of the rope were conven- 
tionally fastened: one to the tree and the other to 
Stoefel’s neck. Then they drove the wagon away 
and Stoefel became a tradition. 

A week later the community slipped into lax 
practice. A man named Scudder shot and killed 
a carpenter named Captain Bassett. For some 
reason he was allowed to escape. A saw-mill was 
stolen from a steamboat on the Missouri and 
carted to Denver, set up and started. A few 
months later the original owner came upon it on 
Blake Street, hard to work. He proved owner- 
ship and the luckless purchaser had to turn it over. 
The unscrupulous “middle-man,” the scorner of 


68 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


titles, was never apprehended. ‘The episode was 
a sobering one to the young city. 

Thomas Clemo, “Chuck-a-luck” ‘Todd and 
William Karl stole a wagon-load of turkeys and 
sold them at a nice profit. ‘They were not as 
careful to keep their anonymity as the saw-mill 
pilferer. They strapped on their guns, stated that 
they were the most important men in the com- 
munity and ordered all disputants to the claim in 
off the streets. Their ranks were quickly aug- 
mented by admirers whose reputations in subse- 
quent histories seem to have been sullied by the 
charge of opportunism. 

One of these last, a Mr. P. M. McCarthy, car- 
ried away by his new-found enthusiasm, fired at 
one W. H. Middaugh as the latter stood in the 
doorway of the Vasquez House, a hostelry at 
Eleventh and Ferry Streets. ‘The bullet missed its 
mark and Mr. Middaugh went into the hotel. 
Then a Mr. Harvey, another convert to the new 
individualism, fired at the same Middaugh 
through a window of the hotel, thus violating an 
established privacy. The citizenry felt that this 
last gesture was quite too profane and called out 
the militia for drill. The militia patrolled the 
town that night in its own way. McCarthy, still 
restless and dissatisfied, approached one of the 
amateur sentries and made motions at him with 
a bowie knife. But the sentry happened to make 
up for his lack of border technique with a civic 
enthusiasm and he bashed in McCarthy’s skull 
with his rifle barrel. Thereupon Harvey, who had 


WasHED WHITER N SNOW 69 


followed McCarthy out of a native curiosity felt 
called upon to assert his manliness and drew his 
revolver. The second relief arrived at this junc- 
ture and Harvey’s temper cooled. 

The next morning, the citizens issued an order 
that the Todd-Harvey crowd leave the city—Mc- 
Carthy having succumbed to his injury. But such 
enterprises are usually marked by a general rais- 
ing of the community pulse and thereupon one 
George Steele who lived across the river, came 
riding through the streets anathematizing the town 
in no uncertain language. He was not able to 
make his language stick, however, for a dozen 
militiamen likewise roused rode forth to meet him 
causing him to ride back into the West from 
whence he came. There was peace in town for six 
weeks thereafter. 

Lest any misapprehension develop that the tak- 
ing of life was the only practice to call out a 
community expression of disapproval, a digression 
from the chronology of this outline is necessary. 
One of the first malpractices engaged in Denver 
was the practice of “land-jumping.” There being 
no courts of record on the ground, possession was 
even more than nine points in the law. Should a 
claimant find it necessary to leave his mining 
claim or his town plot over night he was apt to 
find it occupied on the morrow by some sort of 
emergency shack bristling with rifles and defiance. 
Two human agents were usually to be found be- 
sides. 

An incorporated “town company” made a busi- 


70 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ness of acquiring assets in this fashion. Messrs. 
W. H. Parkinson, Thompson and Mickey were 
the executive officers of the company and their 
aggressive policy soon made them unpopular. A 
series of town meetings was held and the situation 
discussed. Messrs. Parkinson, Thompson and 
Mickey would build sheet-iron shacks, stock them 
with an arsenal of forty to fifty rifles, and keep a 
vigilant night and day watch. Hence the town 
committee saw fit to approach its problem ver- 
bally. Ostensibly the members of the company 
were on cordial terms with the citizens of the town, 
speaking pleasantly at all casual street encounters 
but one day a Major R. B. Bradford forgot him- 
self so far as to speak warmly and adversely of 
the practices of Mr. Parkinson, which so incensed 
the latter that when the two gentlemen passed on 
the street the next day, he, Parkinson, fired three 
revolver shots at the major at close range—and 
missed him every time. This blatant show of in- 
capacity did much to crystallize public sentiment 
and the citizens thereupon passed an ordinance 
that the landjumpers be reimbursed for their pains 
and trouble and shown the door of the city. Land- 
jumping became taboo and no further record of 
its practice in Denver is known, 

To resume: 

Marcus Gredler and Jacob Roeder had pooled 
their resources and efforts in a mining venture and 
were in camp near the mouth of Bear Creek 
Canon, south-west of Denver a few miles. For 
some reason Gredler became incensed with his 


| WasHEeD WHITER N SNOW 71 


partner and cut off his head with an ax on June 
12th., 1859. Now it may seem by the mere edi- 
torial selection of these episodic landmarks that 
the new community was nothing if not vigilant. 
Whether they managed to catch every lawbreaker 
or not is not determinable for the acts of those 
who may have managed to get away may have 
been buried in an editorial silence. But it is 
recorded that the upholders of the weal caught 
Marcus Gredler. They tried him in Apollo Hall 
on June 13th. And on June 15th they hung him 
from a tailor-made scaffold at the intersection of 
Cherry Creek and Curtis Street. 

The civic spirit was not allowed to abate for 
long. William T. Hadley, a wagon boss, lent em- 
phasis to his verbal discipline of an employee with 
a butcher knife. The employee died. On June 
24th Hadley was tried by a people’s tribunal un- 
der the judicial leadership of Mr. William Person. 
The evidence was adduced in the presence of five 
hundred citizens. The judge put the decision up 
to a vote. The prisoner lost the case by four hun- 
dred and nine votes to one. He accepted the ver- 
dict with a marvellous calm and as a reward for 
his “he-manly” deportment was granted two days’ 
respite in which to write to his family and settle 
his estate. On June 26th he was given into the 
custody of a voluntary hanging committee and on 
that night he managed to escape. Much bitter 
feeling developed inasmuch as collusion was 
charged. Hadley was never again apprehended 
though a party of immigrants coming into Denver 


72 THe TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


met him far down the Platte and reported that he 
had made mention of his adventures in a light and 
airy vein. 

The chronicle does not vary materially. Charles 
Harrison, a bad man, shot and killed a negro by 
the name of Stark in Cibola Hall because the lat- 
ter had the presumption to suggest that he take 
a part in Harrison’s poker game. Stark was a 
free “nigger,” having paid for his freedom out of 
his own pocket. As events developed his new- 
found self-reliance proved his social undoing. 
Harrison was not arrested nor brought to trial, 
the present-accepted symbols of race equality not 
having been fully established in the new town. 

Cibola Hall thus became the dramatic back- 
ground for many a subsequent passing. Six days 
later James A. Gordon, who was part owner of 
the hall, shot down Frank O’Neill, who was a 
young man of ambition and proprietor of a house 
of ill repute on Arapahoe Street. O’Neill re- 
covered and returned to his labors. On July 
20th Gordon, out gunning for competitors, shot 
twice at another resort keeper known as Big Phil. 
Big Phil was considered to be a civic liability and 
so escaped unharmed through flight. 

Gordon whose blood had not quite cooled then 
went to the Louisiana Saloon and, finding there a 
young German immigrant by the name of John 
Gantz, proceeded to vent his exuberance upon 
him. The latter being a stranger in Denver and 
pleasantly desirous of offending none of its influ- 
ential citizens put up no resistance to Gordon’s 


WasHED WHITER N SNOW 73 


rough behavior. Gordon threw Gantz to the floor. 
Gantz got up and left the saloon. Gordon fol- 
lowed him and dragged him back into the centre 
of an admiring: audience where he knocked the 
young visitor flat. One always subjects oneself 
to a risk of discomfort and inconvenience in visit- 
ing any strange community and of course this was 
a recognized fact in 1859. Hence no one inter- 
fered. 

Gordon thereupon lost all sense of civic respon- 
sibility—so say some chroniclers. Others merely 
suggest that he was actuated by a higher purpose, 
namely that of keeping the mines safe for one hun- 
dred per cent American democracy. Which is 
partisan of them. He straddled the chest of the 
prostrate Gantz and in playful fashion put a pistol 
to his head, holding him steady by the hair. Gantz 
still “took the joke,” the onlookers standing back 
in admiring acquiescence. It will be seen that “yes 
men” are not an exclusive product of the twentieth 
century. But Gantz was carrying his geniality too 
far. So Gordon snapped his pistol. He snapped 
it three times. There was a silence in the place 
and Gantz had established a reputation for watch- 
ful waiting. Gordon snapped the trigger once 
more. On the fourth time the gun went off and 
the amiable brains of Mr. Gantz were strewed upon 
the floor. 

The occupants of the saloon then behaved con- 
ventionally. Up to the third snapping Gordon 
had merely been playing. The accidental dis- 
charge of the loaded gun put him in another class. 


74 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


He had gone too far. So when he ran out of the 
saloon they ran after him—not too quickly—but 
with reasonable dispatch. He escaped to Fort 
Lupton. He was followed there by a party of 
gentlemen who had determined to make an exam- 
ple of him. 

The next day they approached the fort on horse- 
back and Gordon spying them from a distance 
fled the post on his horse. Then began a chase 
which might qualify for a Tom Mix or “Hoot” 
Gibson thriller. For ten miles three men pursued 
one man, all four men exchanging the usual 
amenities, shooting from the hip. Gordon’s horse 
went down but somehow he managed to get away. 
It was learned later that he had fled to Indian 
Territory. 

Then W. H. Middaugh, who has featured as a 
target earlier in this chronicle, volunteered to fol- 
low him and bring him back to justice. Mid- 
daugh seems to have been a man with a robust 
stomach, a man worthy of the stature of a symbol. 
Perhaps he lacked the proper press connections 
or fell somewhere short in the necessary pictur- 
esque personal equation, so his image graces no 
drinking fount nor public park esplanade in Den- 
ver to-day, thoroughly as his career deserves it. 
He followed Gordon, who was accustomed to 
standing alone against many and making them 
like it, to the fastnesses of Coffey County, Kan- 
sas, and there made him captive on September 
28th. He travelled over three thousand miles to 
do so and when he returned to Denver a public 


WasHEeD WHITER’N SNOW 75 


purse was raised and his expenses paid in full by 
a grateful populace. 

For by this time Gordon, free and on the world, 
was a smirch on the symbol of law and order 
which was beginning to vie with the climate in 
importance. Gordon was brought to Denver in 
chains, a great trace chain about his waist and 
shackles on his wrists and ankles. A ceremony 
was made of his trial for it was a symbolical vic- 
tory. At Sixteenth and Wazee Streets a people’s 
court was called. The day was October 2nd. The 
jury brought in a prompt verdict of wilful mur- 
der. ‘Thereupon the prisoner was brought to the 
judge’s seat, a balcony of Nelson Sergeant’s 
“Tremont House.” 

The judge stood on the balcony. Three thou- 
sand people stood in the street. Before them and 
below the judge, bareheaded and heavily shackled, 
stood Gordon, the killer. Beside his swart and 
stolid captor he stood with head averted. The 
judge put the question to the crowd: “What is 
your pleasure?” There was a great roar the im- 
port of which was unambiguous. So His Honor 
delivered sentence and civic virtue recessed for 
the day. 

On October the sixth Gordon was hanged from 
a scaffold on the east bank of Cherry Creek near 
Fourteenth and Arapahoe Streets. He had re- 
quested that his captor, Mr. Middaugh, act as his 
executioner. Middaugh, who apparently failed in 
no civic duty, performed the office with credit. 
Three years later he himself was shot down by an 


76 Tre TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


unknown party in Julesburg. It has always 
seemed that the highly developed social instinct 
is not a convenient attribute outside a highly 
developed social environment. 

It is thus to be seen that 1859 was not a dull 
year in the spraddling town. In 1860 there was 
some trouble with an organized band of horse- 
thieves. In the early summer of that year twen- 
ty-six horses were stolen from Bradley’s Ranch, 
thirty-three from Mallory’s Ranch and forty-seven 
from a man named Kershaw. In September the 
indignant owners found a “poor white” known as 
“Black Hawk” with a number of the stolen ani- 
mals. He could not give them a reasonable ex- 
planation so they brought him to the new city and 
confined him in the cellar of the Cherokee House 
at Fifteenth and Blake Streets. It was noised 
about that a secret tribunal would undertake to 
adjudicate his case. It is certain that on the next 
night somebody took him out of his cellar room 
and hanged him from a cottonwood tree on Cherry 
Creek. 

The tradition then goes on to state that in his 
mental upset and worry he confessed his guilt and 
implicated some prominent Denver citizens, the 
implication being that the enterprise had been 
carefully planned by a band of intelligent horse- 
thieves in high circles, a sort of horse-thief trust 
with a great territory extending from Wisconsin 
to Colorado. There was some resultant nervous- 
ness in town, for the new social fabric seemed to 
be weakening. ‘The next night, which happened 


WasHeD WHitTer N SNoW vie 


to be Monday, an agreeable, stoutish gentleman 
by the name of John Shear, well known and popu- 
lar in local convivial circles, was taken from his 
room in the Vasquez House and hanged to an- 
other cottonwood tree on the banks of the Platte. 
Denver at that became distinctly jumpy and 
nervous. Whom was one to trust? Two white 
men had been hung without the usual amenities, 
with no pressagenting whatever. One of them, 
Shear, had been a Denver councilman under the 
old Jefferson Territory Charter. And he had 
bought a multitude of Denverites a lot of good 
liquor over various bars. 

There was something sinister in his taking off. 
Despite its homely aspects the home of justice in 
the people’s courts had been acquiring a tradition. 
And this new practice was violating that tradi- 
tion. Justice, like other symbols, has no right to 
change its habitation unceremoniously. 

But the excitement was not to abate abruptly. 
On the night of Shear’s silent abduction a cer- 
tain Judge A. C. Ford left town very quietly. He 
had had an agreeable reputation in Denver, was 
thought to be one of Denver’s better citizens and 
was not without a certain suavity, dignity, and 
social grace. The only question that could be 
levelled at his character was that he had in his 
time defended a number of very questionable char- 
acters. But what successful lawyer has not? Ford 
left Denver on the night of September the third 
on a Missouri River stage. About seven miles 
east, near the present township of Montclair, the 


73 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


stage was halted by four quiet, well-mannered 
men. They called for Ford, who stepped out upon 
the ground without a word. ‘They caused him to 
mount one of their horses and then told the coach 
to proceed. The occupants caught a final glimpse 
of them, riding slowly away around a hillock. 
About a mile from the trail the four horsemen 
dismounted and told Ford to dismount. It ap- 
pears that “the judge’ was admirably cool 
throughout the whole ordeal. There, in a little 
slough, in a patch of tall grass, they shot him, 
ensemble- fashion, to avoid any trace of personal 
animosity. 

A few days later the driver of a stage-coach 
found the body and brought it to Denver. Ford’s 
fine gold watch which he was known to possess 
was missing. At once questions were asked. A 
certain low character had left Denver a day or two 
previously, it was recollected, so a quiet little 
search party was at once dispatched. ‘They found 
the fugitive with Ford’s watch in El Paso, Texas. 
They brought the watch back to Denver and 
turned it over to Ford’s widow with suitable 
regrets. Justice is justice and a man may not take 
personal advantage of its decrees. 

There is a lot of loose talk born out of shallow 
ideas. One is frequently told that miners and 
sailors are a sort of social riff-raff and that evolu- 
tion from the individual to the herd—the natural, 
expected-of-God procedure—is materially halted 
by them. Perhaps the clear, hard Colorado air 
paradoxically acts as a sort of solvent, for after 


WasHeD WHITER N SNOW 79 


1860 it wasn’t long before Colorado’s mining men 
had welded their community together, developed 
a patriotism and a rigidity of moral code which 
stacks up with the rigid codes of more effete com- 
munities. And while the reader of the foregoing 
may feel that it is merely a record of an intoler- 
able lawlessness, it must be noted that hand in 
hand with violation there stalked a most vigilant 
retribution. 

Colorado was thought to be a land of promise 
from 1859 to 1893. Men would risk their lives 
to reach it. A. D. Richardson, a Boston news- 
paper man travelling to Denver with Horace 
Greeley in 1859, said: “It’ is a most forlorn and 
desolate looking metropolis.” To-day it is a’ 
sprightly and well-ordered town of the bungalow 
era. Millions of gallons of water have been di- 
verted from the snow runnels of Mount Evans and 
Mount Rosalie and grass has been coaxed to grow 
and trees rear their impersonal heads along the 
residence thoroughfares. A great civic centre of 
grass and limestone and marble has been bought 
and paid for out of a special improvement tax. It 
is pointed to with pride. 

Urbanity has not been acquired without a stark, 
untiring effort, however. The heirs of those des- 
perate men who came across the Kansas plains in 
1859 pushing their push-carts, drying up of thirst, 
hiding their fever-soaked bodies from the roving 
Indians who flayed and scalped them whenever 
it seemed expedient, were not to be denied. 

Men, huddling together with their memories and 


80 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


their habits, will cling tenaciously to their in- 
herited visions. ‘The visions of pioneers are 
single-track visions: to store enough water, fight 
off enough savages, acquire title to enough nat- 
ural wealth to insure comfortable old age and re- 
turn to the softer life again. A. D. Richardson 
relates having met a Missourian who, having lost 
himself in the desolation of the “Smoky Hill” trail 
across Kansas, lived for some days off the brains 
of his brother. ‘The latter, being the less hardy, 
had succumbed to the unadulterated sunlight and 
an unalleviated thirst. His skull was presented 
as exhibit A by the survivor as proof of his deter- 
mination to reach the Eldorado. Other instances 
of like severity have been recorded, in particular 
of one immigrant from Illinois who lost two 
brothers along the same grisly trail and disposed 
of them in a similar manner. The disposition of 
a community made up of integers such as these is 
likely to be somewhat relentless and unbending. 
In 1864 Colorado decided to smash the Indian 
menace. The Arapahoes and the Utes were the 
aboriginal inhabitants of central Colorado, though 
they held no recorded titles to their lands. The 
Arapahoes held the plains and the Utes the moun- 
tain fastnesses. While these two tribes spent a 
lot of natural strength in their tribal bickerings 
they occasionally united to disturb the white man. 
In’ 1864 they became extremely restless. They 
blocked all the routes to and from the Missouri 
valley so that a trip across in that year was thought 
to be suicidal. The Civil War had stirred up cer- 


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tain notions in the aboriginal head that white 
supremacy was on the toboggan. So the ranchers 
in remote quarters began to suffer, began to lose 
their scalps. 

One night it was rumored in Denver that the 
Indians were coming to wipe out the town. There 
was tremendous excitement. Fires were lighted. 
Women and, children and some of the less hardy 
males were crowded together into fireproof build- 
ings. Outposts were stationed and sleep was 
abandoned. But the night passed without un- 
toward incident. Shortly after this episode the 
Governor of the territory made a public proclama- 
tion in which he urged “all citizens of Colorado, 
whether organized or individually, to go in pursuit 
of the hostiles and to kill and destroy them wher- 
ever found and to capture and hold to their 
private use and benefit all the property they could 
take.” 

Colorado had a National Guard at the time un- 
der a Colonel John M. Chivington. The Colonel 
had been a Methodist minister in Iowa or Ne- 
braska before becoming a pioneer. His civic 
responsibility had been high for a long time. The 
proclamation of the governor made an impres- 
sion on his stern nature. Like William the Silent 
in the Bois de Boulogne, he received its import 
without resorting to comment. Being titular and 
actual head of Colorado’s military forces he em- 
barked to a council with some Indian chieftains, 
among whom were Black Kettle of the Cheyennes 
and Bull Bear and Left Hand of the Arapahoes. 


82  $$‘TuHEr TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


The conference, like most disarmament confer- 
ences, resulted in nothing more than some pic- 
turesque bits of oratory. The Indians were not 
in the least servile; hardly were they courteous. 
They held a lot of trumps up their sleeves. The 
parley broke up in some confusion without an en- 
tente cordiale coming to flower. Colorado’s gov- 
ernor went to Washington on business and the 
Military Commander of the Department, a Gen- 
eral Curtis, delivered himself of the opinion that 
the governor had had no authority and no ‘right 
to conclude a separate peace with the Indians 
anyway. 

Thereupon Chivington set out for the south 
quietly on his own responsibility. He took his 
regiment with him. In November he came upon 
Left Hand and Black Kettle in camp about forty 
miles south-east of Fort Lyon. Without parley 
he set upon the Indians, having first seen that 
their camp was well surrounded. A very effective 
slaughter was accomplished. Of the nine hundred 
Indians encamped, nearly every one was slain, in- 
cluding Left Hand himself who came forward 
holding up his hands palms outward, signifying 
that he knew when he had had enough. Chiving- 
ton had ordered his men to take no prisoners. 
They obeyed his orders. 

Five years in Colorado, exposed to its natural 
dangers, had taught the Colorado guardsmen the 
best aboriginal practice. Among the victims of 
their thoroughness were nearly all the Arapahoe 
women and children. The white soldiers scalped 


WasHED WHITER'N SNOW 83 


their victims and their work was said to be above 
the reproach of the best aboriginal critics. 

The victorious guardsmen returned to Denver 
and were received by a committee from the 
Chamber of Commerce and commended on the 
thoroughness of their work. The city gave itself 
up to a general rejoicing; business men meeting 
each other on the street would shake hands and 
comment on the fortunate riddance. Somewhat 
to the surprise of the city, the event, later known 
as the “Sand Creek Massacre,” was labelled as a 
deplorable incident by foreign chambers of com- 
merce who, because of their remote point of view, 
had not the proper sense of values and expedi- 
encies. 

“Sand Creek” is an evidence of the growing 
homogeneity of Denver. And homogeneity being 
the first necessity in any social gathering reveals 
itself in a young city as an outstanding virtue. 
For four years the body politic had labored to 
preserve itself from forces of disruption within. 
Then had come the need to preserve itself from 
forces of disruption without. On the whole it 
was a crystallizing process. Then in 1893 to meet 
a great emergency, Governor Davis H. Waite 
proposed to his legislature that if the Government 
of the United States was shortsighted enough to 
dispense with the coinage of silver dollars, thus 
striking by judicial fiat at Colorado’s foremost in- 
dustry—the mining of silver—he, the legislature 
and the State of Colorado should engage in the 
coinage of silver dollars on their own account. 


84 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


He proposed shipping the bullion to Mexico and 
having the money coined there to avoid certain 
awkward social formalities. 

This manly recognition of the first law of nature 
was not endorsed by the representatives and 
Colorado slumped into the worst panic she has 
ever known. The governor’s uncompromising 
gesture toward the great social menace of bank- 
ruptcy is not lessened in glamorous significance 
by the timidity of the agents of his people. 

Denver is sixty-seven years of age. It covers 
an area as large as the town-site of the Borough 
of Manhattan. It has endorsed a slogan, “Five 
Hundred Thousand by 1930.” From the number 
of street signs embellished with this slogan, she is 
going to do it or bust. Certain of her detractors 
say that she will never do it. For, they say, she 
has not the robust civic virtue she once had. 
Justice, having fattened on irrigated fields, her 
cheeks like red pippins from the bright sun and 
lusty winds, is becoming obese. She is a stay-at- 
home listening to radio programs. ‘The robust 
Denver of the early sixties has become softened 
by an overpolite usage, they say. The stringy and 
hard bitten civic body has been taking on flesh and 
losing its sunburn. It has ceased to eliminate its 
natural body poisons in the natural civic way. 
There is a feeling that the sixty-seven year old 
town has overfed herself so obscenely that she no 
longer has the character to put her system in order 
or even to call in a doctor. These are harsh words. 

It has been suggested in the foregoing chronicle 


WasHED WHITER N SNOW 85 


that Denver’s early life was vigorous if nothing 
else. Her rule of thumb was a simple one, made 
up of articles six and eight of the code Mosaic. 
But this simple code was enforced with what even 
Denver’s most rigorous detractors must admit 
was a direct and prompt assumption of respon- 
sibility. 

After 1860 the city may have begun to lose some 
of its civic interest in the upkeep of virtue, turn- 
ing naturally to other concerns. Womenscame to 
Denver. There is a biologic proof of that. And 
hangings began to diminish in number. There is 
visible proof of that in the records. How the citi- 
zens of Denver behaved privately in these years 
is not recorded. ‘That Denver did not differ mate- 
rially in her private life from other cities is not 
to be proved nor is there any desire to prove it. 
There are many wild oats in every public granary. 
Very little sex stuff appears in Denver’s early 
news sheets. But they were not printing that sort 
of thing in news sheets anywhere in those days. 

Then in 1892 and 1893 and thereabouts, one 
notes in a careful perusal of the records that an 
idea seems to have been bruited about to dispense 
with certain practitioners—professional people— 
certain filles de joie—to drive them out of and 
away from certain regions around about Larimer 
and Market Streets—away from Denver alto- 
gether. 

But the merchants got together and without 
ostentation effectively bashed the idea. What 
could the dizzy theorists have been thinking of? 


86 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


The world is always crowded and shouldered into 
uncomfortable corners by rattle-brained enthusi- 
asts who have never paid any of the practical costs 
of “building up” a business or a city. “The Den- 
ver of the early sixties was a fine, upstanding 
town,” these gentlemen assured their consciences. 
“Let there therefore be no picayunish interference 
with the private life of our ‘who’s who,’ the gents 
who put us on the map.” So for seven or eight 
years the town grew into adolescence. And while 
she suffered some financial misfortune in that 
time and grew a bit meagre about the girth as a 
result of the disastrous governmental fiat against 
silver, still she breathed in the free air of her great 
open spaces, was bluff and hearty of speech, ate 
with her knife and kept her self respect. 

But along about the year 1900 a change seemed 
to come over the town. The joy of living began 
to slip behind some sort of shadow. The bluff and 
hearty transgressors of the social code no longer 
took zest in the moral maladversions that they 
used to take. ‘There began to be heard an occa- 
sional ‘“‘shush” when the maladversions of the fore- 
going generations were touched on conversation- 
ally. The head of the house may found a fortune 
but it does not automatically give him a permit to 
come into the parlor in his sock feet and sus- 
penders, to spit into the gas grate or to rest his 
feet on the mantel. Once the level of the upper 
crust is achieved the mode of the upper crust must 
be observed. 

In 1900 the pioneers of the sixties were ap- 


WasHED WHITER'N SNOW 87 


proaching their three score years and ten. They 
were likewise approaching a position of social 
eminence comparable to the eminence of that 
frost-bitten crew that landed on Plymouth Rock 
in 1620. All their barbers, cooks, and sutlers be- 
gan to acquire eminence. 'That some of them may 
have eaten their companions in times of great 
gastronomical pressure was not to be mentioned, 
or if so, with the proper deprecation. Of course 
the ends justified the means. And if there had 
been any informalities in any matters of wedlock 
—why, what was a man to expect in a mining 
town? In short, while Denver was becoming so- 
cially conscious, while she was getting her first 
taste of suavity, she showed a fine broad spirit of 
understanding and forbearance. The attitude of 
the merchants toward the ladies of Larimer Street 
illustrates the point. 

But along about 1900 certain private matters 
concerning certain first families began to be noised 
about. Along with the gossip and conversation 
came some attendant snickering. It all seemed to 
come from the same source. It was the sound a 
pair of peeping toms make to each other between 
gasps as they peer into a strange bed-room. At 
first this behavior received the disregard that it 
deserved. But it was repeated. 

Time and again it was repeated. Down the 
list of “who’s who” went these naughty peeping 
boys. No one with a financial rating escaped. Old 
motheaten yarns of old motheaten adulteries be- 
gan to go the rounds again. Now it is one thing 


88 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


to hold up to light the sexual misbehavior of a 
young and sprightly pair. And it is another thing 
to lug out of camphor the old dead passions and 
indulgences of a couple whose frangible bones will 
no longer stand up under mundane stresses and 
whose eyes have lost their lustre, and to trot them 
up and down a runway for public speculation. 
The latter somehow savors of passing around sec- 
ond hand cough-drops. 

But the practice was not confined to baiting the 
senile. Wild oats became a drug on the market. 
If a young blade felt the urge of a spring fret, 
it was up to him to take it to far distant pastures 
or else be prepared to pay liberally for his indul- 
gence in cash or exposure. 

For it is not to be inferred that this new insti- 
tute for the preservation and encouragement of 
virtue owed its inception to any altruistic motive 
however misguided. ‘The gentlemen who con- 
trolled its destinies were merchants in the com- 
pletest sense—not evangelists. They had come to 
Denver frankly for the mazuma. 

They had looked over the field and decided to 
build up a market for silence. No one had been 
peddling that commodity in the town up to that 
time. No one had recognized the great oppor- 
tunity. It was virgin country for that sort of © 
thing. Up to that time Denver had behaved 
frankly and unashamedly as a child behaves 
toward all adult taboos. In 1900 Denver was 
reaching her adolescence. She began to have a 
sort of adolescent shame of showing to strangers 


‘WaAsHED WHITER’N SNOW 89 


her nude civic body. By 1900 many of the aes- 
thetic values of the General Grant era had 
trickled into Denver; the legs of its womankind 
were not included in its symbolical picture of her. 
In 1900 the new virtue merchants recognized with 
discernment that the time was at its ripest for 
their venture. So they went to work. 

Silence being a negative quality owes its im- 
portance solely to its contrast with its antipodes. 
One cannot measure the quality of a silence save 
by a comparison with the racket which it displaces. 
Its quantity of course is measured by the length 
of its duration. 

The price of silence, like the price of other com- 
modities is to be determined by its quality and its 
quantity and it lkewise depends on the laws of 
supply and demand. Hence to make silence valu- 
able, the first step obviously is to make it a rare 
thing. That is the first thing these itinerant mer- 
chant princes proceeded to do. In the early days 
water had been the rarest, the dearest, the most 
unique natural blessing in the town. In a few 
months it was displaced at the head of the list of 
community rarities. Man—Colorado man—for- 
got the sound of his great open spaces. Nature 
lost her voice in the babel. The immigrant ped- 
dler princes knew their stuff. 

Then customers began coming in. “What will 
be the price of three years of silence concerning 
my aunt Majolica?’—“TI want to run for district 
judge and I would like a six months’ respite for 
my character. How many franchises will it cost 


90 Tue TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


me?”—‘My bank is having a little rough sledding 
right now—last summer so hard on the stock, you 
know. What’s the tax for keeping mum until we 
can get over the hill? Can I buy an exemption 
outright or do you folks want it on a royalty 
basis?” 

To the superficial observer Denver is a fine, 
moral town. A clean town. The robust splendor 
of the early sixties apparently has not been 
dimmed. In the cartoons of her daily sheets the 
typical Denverite is always pictured as a some- 
what dour gent in a broad brimmed hat with fat, 
capable hands and a banker’s mustache, a trace of 
a paunch draped with a fourteen carat chain and 
a Masonic emblem. He usually stands in a manly 
if informal posture, taking a farmer or a laborer 
into his pleasant confidence. He is usually pic- 
tured as telling these latter that so long as they 
behave they may inherit God’s footstool with 
him—that this Colorado of his’n is undoubtedly 
God’s footstool, and that the climate like which 
there is nothing comparable was probably made 
possible by his farsighted and well chosen friend- 
liness with the Almighty. Colorado is a place 
where men are men and it is a privilege to live. 
For there are no slums in Denver. There are no 
sinks of iniquity. There is no mud in the gutters, 
due perhaps to the fact that the dust there has 
never felt the degenerating touch of rain. Denver 
is a clean town. 

But after a visitor to its well swept environs has 
begun to get the lay of the land, he begins to hear 


WasHED WHITER 'N SNOW 91 


a few thin-voiced complaints, whispers in queru- 
lous key. 

The self-same stereotype who rests his paunch 
on the gate post and disclaims so gustily about 
the weather is for the most part a fiction of the 
cartoonist. He is on dress parade for the Tourist 
Bureau. See him in the home and you will find 
him a bit bare as to hair, a bit run down at the 
heel, a bit runny at the nose, nervous and jumpy, 
furtive and blustery. 

You will observe that he keeps a weather eye 
on his family closet. Never for one moment, 
while you are watching, will he get out of sight 
of the door of it. He may have in his pocket the 
receipt for ten years’ silence, covering all members 
of his immediate family, his own past behavior, 
the reputations of all his progenitors. But he 
never can tell how soon an eldest son may see fit 
to fly off on a hideous tangent or a daughter run 
away with a soda jerker, making it necessary for 
him to rush immediately forth and draw up a 
new protective contract covering all these new 
idiosyncrasies. It’s a rotten life for a man who 
knows his duty when he sees it. 

It will be claimed that despite the imperfec- 
tions of the system, virtue is its own reward. Per- 
haps it is. If so, then these peddler princes of 
privacy will doubtless be interred as to bones and 
gristle in some future American Canterbury, there 
to be revered as they deserve. But as is customary 
with most dogmatic saints their popularity is not 
marked. The bluff and ready Coloradoan who 


92 Toe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


makes such a fine show of crossing their palms 
with silver so as to make the procedure simulate 
the best business practice, in secrecy would like 
nothing better than to have some of those sacred 
bones to feed into some pleasant coffee mill. In 
the privacy of his club, in the comfortable corner 
of his overstuffed divan, under the cover of the 
harsh voice of his new “loud speaker” he may ad- 
mit to himself, may even admit to some trusted 
Damon or Pythias that “things ain’t what they 
used to be” and that “‘some day all this monkey 
business’ll have to stop.” 

Not so very long ago a certain Denver citizen, 
owner of a large semi-public utility, was closeted 
with a number of his peers. The walls were her- 
metically sealed. Great doors shut out the Colo- 
rado sunshine. This gentleman stood and de- 
livered the customary platitudes. And then he 
began to yield to emotion. But first he caught a 
surreptitious look behind him. 'Then he lowered 
his voice. “I’m a native Coloradoan,” he whis- 
pered. “I’m a Westerner. And by God Ill not 
stand for this sort of thing much longer.” He 
paused and gulped dramatically. “Some day I 
may want to leave the state. And if I do—and 
if anything is—if there’s any conversation about 
it—or me—or mine—by God somebody’s going to 
be hurt.” He did not seem at all happy at the 
prospect. 

It is rather an odd contrast to the behavior of, 
say, W. H. Middaugh, who trailed young Gordon 
across to Coffey County, Kansas, thirty-two hun- 


WasHED WHITER 'N SNOW 93 


dred miles, with a rope and a six-shooter and a 
natural buckram along his spine. 

A few months ago the Denver Chamber of 
Commerce issued one of its usual spawn of slogans. 
Due notice of it appeared in the birth and death 
columns of the Denver papers but no one saw fit 
to comment editorially, for the birth of a slogan 
of a Chamber of Commerce is now thought to be 
reasonably commonplace. 

But the foreign press picked one out of the 
scramble and held it up for ridicule. Poor little 
thing, it was so weak and helpless it did not know 
what the laughter was all about. And its parents 
were covered with a natural confusion, not feeling 
too sure about it somehow. 

This particular little slogan said: 

WORT” 

And then, following this positive adjuration, it 
appeared to lose some confidence, lapsing into a 
weaker, negative parlance. ‘The words then ran: 

“I will speak no evil. 

“TI will hear no evil 

“Of Colorado and Denver. 

“IT will always 

“uphold my State 

“and City. 

“Denver Chamber of Commerce.” 

The foreign press characterized it as mere 
Chamber of Commerce piffle. But actually it is 
more than that. It is the faint and plaintive pro- 
test of a community that has been threatened to 
death. Printed on red and white window cards 


94 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


it appeared in thousands of Denver windows, on 
the posts and fences of Denver. Of a certainty 
there were some nailed to the physical properties 
of the Bandit Virtue Trust itself. 

There is a law on the statute books which for- 
bids the buying and selling of silence. But the 
law is helpless before an organized morality. So 
it sits in its chair of state and mows and trembles 
and gives off an occasional shrivelled cachinna- 
tion. For the collectors of the Virtue Trust’s 
levy are not without a certain Rabelaisian humor 
in the performance of their self-appointed tasks. 

The Denver Chamber of Commerce is fright- 
ened lest the Virtue Trust may seek to peddle its 
wares to the city. They are afraid lest the pure 
white symbol of the city’s honor may be sub- 
jected to some adverse remarks. They shrink from 
the display of her nude civic body. And lest they 
be ordered by the Trust to “kick-in” with the 
usual lagniappe in kind, they are voicing this 
plaintive little protest. Denver’s past, present 
and future are not to be impugned. ‘They are 
attempting to build up a moral code forbidding 
such a thing. And the Virtue Trust is laughing 
up its sleeve. It knows what it can do. | 

As for the silence concerning Denver’s past, is it 
really worth anything—that silence? The old 
Denver possessed at least one homely virtue that 
seems lacking in the Denver of to-day. She had 
adequate bowels for battle. She had the stuff to 
keep her house in a sort of gusty order. And she 
laundered her own ’scutcheon. 


WasHEeD WHITER N SNOW 95 


The Denver of to-day seems to be desirous of 
nothing so much as to keep her reputation clean. 
She seems willing to dust on a little rice powder 
over the dirt. She has no heart to come to grips 
with the Virtue Trust and she has the character 
to make a deal with them, a perennial contract for 
silence—civie silence—which the Virtue Trust 
merchandizes also. But fearing that the price 
which she may have to pay may savor of distor- 
tion she is predicating her civic need with the 
aforementioned slogan. Her civic wise-men are 
of the same stripe as the Punic merchants of 
Hamilcar’s day. Fatuously they imagine that by 
the weight of their accumulated august presences 
they may bring the price of silence down. In 
their hearts they know better. All of Denver’s 
élite know better. 

The truth of the matter is: the Denver of to- 
day lacks guts. Suavity and slogans have bleached 
her to a poor anaemic yellow. Nice town, yes, 
but 

Just who is the Virtue Trust? 

Write and ask any member of the Denver 
Chamber of Commerce. 








SAN FRANCISCO: 


A Retrospect oF BOHEMIA 
By 
Idwal Jones 





SAN FRANCISCO 


NE of those Stygian tule fogs had swirled 

through the Latin Quarter and got into our 
throats. My friend, a tenor of resounding fame, 
was apprehensive for his vocal cords, therefore we 
entered a bar in Columbus avenue and asked for 
strong drink. ‘The barkeep looked as_ stone- 
hearted as Tagliagola, the Calabrian bandit. Pro- 
hibition informers had faces even more innocent 
than those of ours reflected in the mirror. And he 
had been raided twice. It was a critical moment. 

“Ah, un bel di!” warbled the tenor. Tagliagola 
melted. His Bourbon was good. Then entered a 
personage. He was crowned with a huge cappello, 
and his cloak, smeared with clay and paints, was 
fastened at the neck with a silver chain like a bull- 
dog’s. 

“Signori, an artist,” explained the barkeep. 
“Mister Giovanni Muschio!” 

Noblesse oblige, so we offered him a glass. 
Later, Muschio demanded that we be served with 
a dinner sufficiently worthy of us. So down cel- 
lar we went, a black cave alive with squealing 
rats. A light revealed a table covered with oil- 
cloth and set about with decrepit chairs. Taglia- 
gola banged pots on the stove and yelled infer- 

99 


100 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


nally, and some quite charming persons came 
down: an Italian editor, a scene-painter, a fiddler 
and a singer among them. 

A miraculous banquet was evolved: gnocchi, 
vitello con salsa, chicory salad and zabaglione. 'To 
drink there was Asti spumante, Tipo Chianti 
with wicker bellies, demijohns of sparkling Zin- 
fandel. The talk was stimulating, an intellectual 
tornado. We made speeches that were vocifer- 
ously applauded. Muschio eulogized our pleas- 
ant traits. ‘Tagliagola arose, vowed that his life 
had not been lived in vain, then collapsed, through 
excess of emotion. It was that Asti... 

At 5 a. m. we encountered the dawn. Who 
paid for that fabulous dinner I never knew. It 
was not Muschio. We conducted him down 
Third street, among the Hellenic coffee-shops, 
while he looked up at the signs. Beneath one: 
“Beds. Two Bits a Night,” he halted. Borrow- 
ing a quarter, he wished us a buona notte and 
disappeared into the flop-house of Big Gus the 
Greek. The tenor, being a man of fine instincts, 
wept, and swore he would live in San Francisco 
forever. However, he sobered up, and left that 
very morning. | 

After that, Muschio, in compary with a Jugo- 
Slav painter, came often to my garret in Cali- 
fornia street to argue. A militant anti-clerical, 
he spoke with pride, nevertheless, of some years’ 
time he had served on a Jesuit organ in Milan, 
writing editorials. His Russian was even better 
than his Italian, so much had he travelled. He 


A Retrosrect oF BOHEMIA 101 


made living painting imitations of Zuloaga and 
Gauguin—an incredible mixture. Heaven only 
knows where they are. Probably in museums. 
Some of his Gauguins were better than the orig- 
inals. 

Desperately hard up though he was, he enter- 
tained in the most lordly fashion. The last affair 
he staged in the chambers of a woman painter now 
dead. THe assessed all of us a dollar. He pur- 
chased miles of spaghetti, boiled it in a baby’s 
washtub borrowed from the Jap _ housecleaner 
downstairs, and made a bucketful of sauce. These 
feats he performed over a gas-burner, up in his 
attic. ‘The comestibles were hauled off in a cab, 
and he stopped en route at an undertaker’s parlor 

to buy a pair of white cotton gloves. 

The dinner was a splendorous success. The 
stuff was edible. That man could have made a 
ragout of a tough hippogriff. Muschio donned 
the gloves and dished out the paste by handfuls. 
We were short of tumblers. As luck would have 
it, George Wharton James kept here his famous 
collection of Pompeian tear-jars, and out of these 
lachrymatories we sipped the blushful Hippocrene. 

At “dress-up” feasts he always came two hours 
late; and small wonder, for he kept his velours hat 
at Bigin’s, his cane at La Campana, his best 
trousers back of the wine kegs at Buon Gusto, a 
pair of pointed shoes at the Tour Eiffel, under 
the bar, and his collars—he had forgotten where. 

Even the best-certified Bohemians marvelled at 
Muschio, the while they prophesied a dire fate. 


102 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


The worst did come to pass. He visited Los 
Angeles—some elderly lady had become infatu- 
ated with him—and he tarried. Now this gai 
sabreur has been painting scenery for Tom Mix. 
The amount of money he makes must be prodi- 
gious, and in frock-coat he rides about in a limou- 
sine driven by a high-priced Japanese with a face 
like a bronze. 

He was the last of the guerilla artists, and his 
defection caused no surprise. For Bohemia had 
long been on the wane. 

Muschio recalls the vanished triumvirate that 
made the beer-halls of San Francisco the envy 
of Munich: Tofanelli, a braggart of the first 
water; Benvenuti, the eagle-faced and violent old 
man whose forebears for generations had been the 
official painters at the Vatican; and Cristodoro, a 
fat and morose genius whose taste in gnomes, 
kobolds, Gothic landscapes, and cavern scenes 
with a medieval flavor of rapine and bloodshed 
made beer-drinking at the Louvre, the Olympia, 
the Zinkand, the Pabst and the Tait an emotional 
experience. 


The merry and turbulent days were dying out. 
More thoroughly than Baron Haussmann had 
changed Paris, the fire of 1906 had transformed 
San Francisco. The genus loci had been inciner- 
ated. The old haunts were destroyed. The energy 
of the people was absorbed in the task of recon- 
struction, and there was a hiatus in the artistic 
life until the building of the exposition. 


A. RETROSPECT OF BOHEMIA 103 


When the lath and stucco city began to rise on 
the Marina, the painters and sculptors, who had 
fled elsewhere, drifted back, and with them hun- 
dreds of European craftsmen. That task com- 
pleted, plastic artists did gingerbread for the 
architects. The brushmen got jobs with the poster 
companies. A thousand lots within the city limits 
were screened about with hoardings that concealed 
craters filled with weeds and fused brick. So bill- 
board painting became the principal art of the 
town. 

The affiche has progressed in San Francisco 
beyond anything done this side of the Atlantic. 
Collars, ginger-ale, butter-substitutes, Coca-Cola, 
hats, automobiles, chocolates, bifocal glasses, 
vacuum cleaners—these are emblazoned on the 
noblest billboards west of the Mississippi. At 
night they are dressed up with electric sparklers. 
A majestic Navajo—a Maynard Dixon Indian— 
stands on an illimitable desert and contemplates a 
salmon-pink sunset. ‘The moral is to buy some- 
body’s tires. But what of it? This is a commer- 
cial age, and to paint such is remunerative work. 

The aesthetic nature of the present generation 
has been nurtured on these billboards, just as in 
England the prose style of the most esteemed 
writers has been formed on Eno’s Fruit Salt ad- 
vertisements. The billboards are vanishing before 
the triumphal progress of the concrete-mixer, and 
must soon take refuge in the far hinterland. 

Some ten artists are painting pictures to hang 
on walls. There are still homes left to put them 


104 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


in. But the majority of citizens are genuinely 
urban and dwell downtown. Even millionaires 
live in midget apartments, for the immigration 
laws have made the problem of domestic help more 
acute than ever. The wall-bed is a San Francisco 
invention, and when the contraption preempts too 
much of the wall space for anything to be stuck 
up larger than a photograph. 

Where are the Bohemians of yesteryear? Gone 
into commerce, and prosperity has befallen them. 
They keep respectable ménages in “gum finish” 
apartments. And they are probably all at home. 
Call up any of a score, and no longer do you hear 
the significant, and sacramental phrase: “The line 
is temporarily disconnected.” 

The writers? Gone to New York, where all the 
publishing houses in the country are. They don’t 
commit the folly of shooting at long distance when 
they can make a killing just a block away and 
save postage. The weekly periodicals that bred a 
superb crop of literati here in the previous three 
decades are non-existent. Folk used to lay in a 
supply of local weeklies to read over the week-end 
as religiously as they brougdt home the sabbatical 
gallon of steam beer. 7 

Golf and the automobile have usurped Sundays. 
But what killed the weeklies was the distrust of 
periodicals that were not standardized, that were 
not precisely what people read in New York, Chi- 
cago, Boston and everywhere else. The urbane 
and erudite stylist, who seasoned his articles with 
the salt of in situ allusion, was damned as provin- 


A. ReEvTrRosPEct OF BOHEMIA 105 


cial. He hadn’t a chance against the rotogravures 
of bathing beauties. 

Prohibition, of course, wrecked the topography 
of Bohemia. Gone are all the haunts, from Mar- 
shall’s of Bret Harte’s day, where the romancer 
discussed sherry and baked venison marrow with 
the prototypes of Oakhurst and Jack Hamlin, to 
the last of the botteghe raided in the Latin Quar- 
ter, where the bright spirits foregathered to spend 
unlimited hours at trifling cost and cultivate the 
fine art of conversation. 

Leveroni’s, the gayest of cellars; Maggini’s, re- 
nowned as the stamping ground of the wits of the 
“Suicide Club”; Lucchetti’s, famous for its “‘bread- 
ball” barrage and fried halibut; Papa Coppa’s, 
with “the jug behind the door,” the rendezvous of 
the Irwins, Jimmy Hopper, Jack London, George 
Sterling, Martinez, with the bandeau over his 
Aztec locks, and the seigniorial Ambrose Bierce, 
dropping in after visits to the Morgue where he 
had gone to inspect the “floaters” in from the bay; 
Negro and O’Brien’s; the early Fior d'Italia, 
otherwise the “Fire of Italy,’ where newspaper- 
men were ranked one notch higher than the lesser 
angels—the litany is now like a strain on a Louis 
XIV harpsichord. 

Reverent souls will point out their sites for you. 
They are soft-drink parlors, or they are placarded 
with those saddest words of tongue or pen: “This 
Corner to be Remodeled to Suit Tenant.” 

At times a Latin pities those whose souls were 
once warmed with the ichor of the true Falernian, 


106 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


and starts a cenacle. The hired snifters creep in. 
They gladhand the illuminati, bedevil mellow talk 
on paint and words, and after indefatigable ef- 
forts succeed in inducing the cook to give them 
a sip from the kitchen sherry bottle. Then a 
badge is flashed; everybody gets hauled off to the 
Bastille, and broad and genial tolerance is once 
more foully slain. And in a state where viticul- 
ture but a few years ago was glorified as the 
noblest of arts. 


Civic indulgence perished before the onslaught 
of the Methodist forces in 1916. Their leader was 
an Lowa Savonarola, the Rev. Paul Smith, pastor 
of the Central Methodist Church. Their first ob- 
jective was that roaring spectacle, the Barbary 
Coast. Roughly, it embraced Broadway and 
Pacific street, where the Thalia, the Wave, the 
Swede’s and a score more dance halls gave enter- 
tainment to lusty youth from the mines, the lumber 
camps and the deep sea, and the adjacent alleys 
where twinkled the lights o’ love. It was in a mean 
part of the town; less flagrant than the Paphian 
belt of New Orleans, and little more wicked, though 
more noisy, than the Cannabiére of Marseilles. 

The vice-fighting parson let loose his philippics. 
The police commissioner protested that the region 
was more orderly than any in Chicago or New 
York, but the row was on. The pastor threatened 
to print a roll of dishonor with the names of the 
plutocrats who owned property in the district. 
The city quaked with anticipation, but the idea 


A. Rerrosrect oF BOHEMIA 107 


fizzed out like a damp farthing candle, for only 
an obscure real estate agent got shown up—much 
to his annoyance. Then the pastor organized the 
Law Enforcement and Protective League, with 
himself as president and a Y. M. C. A. secretary 
as promotion manager. All the professional wow- 
sers rallied under the banner and fought with the 
exaltation of mullahs. The filles de joie were 
aghast, then consumed with indignation. They 
appeared in a body at the Central Methodist 
Church, and made their complaints likewise at the 
City Hall. 

But the game was up, and the alleys were puri- 
fied. The dance-halls were abolished, the French 
restaurants chastened, and the beer-hall devotees 
disciplined to the meekness of Quakers at a meet- 
ing-house. The vice-fighting parson paused not. 
He determined to carry his reform all over the 
United States. The first step was to employ the 
movies, and to film the great fight as an object les- 
son. So “The Finger of Justice’ was made. The 
church scene was filmed with the Reverend Smith 
in his own pulpit, supported by a vested choir of 
thirty-six, with the pipe organ going at full blast, 
and the congregation in the throes of hysteria. 
Gilded sin was depicted in the cabaret scene, which 
cost $5,000. Little Jane O’Roark, attired in shim- 
mering scales, writhed as the vamp; Crane Wilbur, 
star of “The Perils of Pauline,” had the hero’s role, 
and the Rev. William L. Stidger, an able young 
ecclesiastic, now in Henry Ford’s entourage, es- 
sayed the part of the cop. 


108 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Two hundred Methodist persons attended the 
first showing, and shattered the canons of their 
church by sanctioning the Sunday exhibition of the 
film. Inspired by his meteoric rise to the front 
pages, the Rev. Paul Smith resigned from the min- 
istry to become head of the International Church 
Film Corporation, and left for New York. There, 
much to the chagrin of the League, the license com- 
missioner of the State, one Gilchrist, barred the 
film as subversive of public morals! 

The Barbary Coast, boarded up, is now the 
haunt of stray cats and mechanics contemplating 
the opening of small tire-repair shops. Otherwise 
it is as deserted as the North Pole, except at eight 
o'clock of evenings, when the Salvation Army, ever 
faithful to the spot, bangs the tambourine and ex- 
horts the empty air, exorcising the ghosts of dead 
sins. On the boundaries, below stairs, are dismal 
and empty Little Bethels. At times a Jack Tar 
strolls through, striking matches to hunt for once 
familiar numbers, and then hies himself to a Wild 
West movie or to blaze away fifty cents at a shoot- 
ing gallery. The Los Angelization of San Fran- 
cisco is almost complete. The latest innovations 
are orange-juice stands and buffoons in costume 
ballyhooing in front of the movie palaces. The pas- 
sion for uniformity rages. Until recently the town 
had a complexion peculiarly its own. But not now. 


The annals of San Francisco are vast and ex- 
travagant. In the seventy-five years of its exist- 
ence there was more fulgurous life than in three 


A Rerrosrect oF BOHEMIA 109 


cycles of Cathay. In a twinkling a trading post 
had become a Gargantuan camp which the tur- 
bulent youth of fifty nations transformed within 
a decade into a city of the first rank. The town 
had become old before it ceased to be young. It 
had a Bohemia from the very beginning. 

The first Bohemian was Jacques Raphael, the 
witty chef-de-cuisine of the old Tehama House. 
He had been cordon blew at the Rocher de Can- 
cale, Paris—the rendezvous of Balzac’s Rastignac. 
Alexander Dumas rhapsodized over his baked 
partridges. When the roi-citoyen Louis Philippe 
went to pot, Murger’s Boheme died the death, and 
Mons. Jacques quit France, in a great hurry. The 
next year gold was discovered in California, and 
in a tent pegged down on a San Francisco sand- 
dune the once illustrious chef, in top boots and 
sombrero, was ladling out slumgullion a la Maza- 
rin to the Argonauts. 

La carriére ouverte aux talents! 'That was Mons. 
Jacques’ brave device. He advanced to omelettes 
a la Morny, made from seagulls’ eggs. His sauce 
to disguise the fishy flavor was a culinary triumph. 
His business grew, and he put up a huge corru- 
gated-iron shed. Spanish aristocrats, Mississippi 
steamboat gamblers, sailors, the frail sisterhood, 
gunmen, Sydney “coves,” miners insane through 
sudden wealth—these poured riches in Mons. 
Jacques’ lap. 

He formed a cenacle that included the wits of 
the camp: two nephews of Victor Hugo, the fiery 
Lola Montez, just banished from her Aspasian 


110 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


couch in Bavaria—surely the man had talk and 
charm enough about him. San Francisco, a city 
of sand-hills, tents, sheds, Peggotty houses made 
of ships sunk in the teeth of rifle-fire by schemers 
preempting the waterfront lots; a city harried by 
the cutthroat “hounds” and policed by the no less 
dreadful Vigilantes—it was not Paris. But Mons. 
Jacques enjoyed himself hugely. 

That summer the first artistic event was held— 
a concert. ‘The solid citizenry attended en masse, 
with the Governor and his staff; the barbarians 
tried to “crash the gate,’ but were repulsed by 
the gendarmes. ‘The front row was reserved for 
the ladies, and four hetairz availed themselves of 
the privilege—the entire house standing until they 
were seated. The affair was a terrific success. The 
cheering was maniacal, corybantic. Canes, hats, 
chairs were hurled into the air. It would have 
turned the head of Taglioni or Fanny Elssler. 
Mons. Jacques declared, “It was a Romantic 
demonstration that eclipsed that over ‘Ernani.’ ” 

What was the feast? Merely a spectral tenor, 
a Pierre Gringoire who had been dining through 
his nose, warbling “Take Back the Heart that 
Thou Gavest” at a tinkly piano in the schoolhouse. 
That tenor was Steve Massett, later renowned for 
having eaten a whole cooked goose at a New York 
salon. 

Above the tower on the Butte Montmartre in 
Paris clanked a semaphore. Atop Telegraph 
Hill in San Francisco, an eminence destined to 
become the Montmartre, nay, the Parnassus, of 


A Retrospect oF BoHEMIA vt 


the western world, likewise clanked a semaphore. 
The analogy pleased Mons. Jacques. He died, a 
satisfied exile, and was promptly forgotten. ‘The 
candle of la vie bohémienne had been lighted by 
one of apostolic succession. 

So far the boundaries of Bohemia had not been 
defined. Attics were let out at fabulous sums. 
Social unorthodoxy prevailed. What is Bohemia 
but a minority revolt against provincial narrow- 
ness? The town was gay, sprawling, uproarious 
and peopled by men tolerant of mind and by na- 
ture nomadic and lively. 

By the middle fifties Bohemia, such as it was, 
was the milieu of dandies, viveurs and gentlemen 
of fortune. The high-rollers consorted on Mer- 
chant street, massively built up with brick edifices 
reinforced by iron doors and shutters, and hardly 
wider than an alley. The gourmands were to be 
found at the Ivy Green Saloon where Bass’s Ale 
was to be procured. Bolton and Barron, the 
quicksilver kings, had here their offices and ban- 
quet-room; their chef was paid twice the salary 
of the President of the United States. He cooked 
the fifteen-pound turkey, washed down with twen- 
ty bottles of sherry, that the corpulent banker 
Eugene Duprey consumed at one sitting to the 
awe of the assemblage. He won a bet of $500 
thereby. Without, like a crowd by the Quirinal 
awaiting the result of a Papal election, were 
throngs of tribudores come up from the mines, 
arrayed in velvet jackets bedecked with silver 
buttons, their faces stained red with cinnabar ore. 


112 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


As the crapulent hero strode forth, they cheered 
him as rapturously as the Florentine populace ac- 
claimed Giotto or Cimabue. The poet O’Connell 
celebrated that feast in measures right worthy of 
Ossian. 

What passed for the aristocracy kept house in 
South Park. It was gotten up like Kew Gardens, 
and here cattle barons, shipping masters, bankers 
and diplomats gave routs and dinners to three 
hundred people at a time. Young bucks drove 
thither to ogle the damsels promenading from 
Mile. Zeitska’s Female Academy. Bewigged foot- 
men stood guard at the portals. ‘'Trades-persons 
went around to the back areaways. 

Within ten years this citadel of the bourgeoisie 
had become shabby genteel, so fast were the 
changes in the social fabric. Mons. Louis Bacon, 
drawing master and sculptor, tendered himself 
daily in this park, with snuff-box and clouded 
cane. So far as I can learn, he was the first artist. 
He was “bang-up society.” Also he did funerary 
art, and his stone urns and weeping-willows still 
evoke the megrims in the abandoned graveyards. 

By happy chance, he ran into a Maecenas, one 
Ah Sing, an adept in Chinese rituals who kept 
a private joss-house. Ah Sing was a master-hand 
at funerals. Flute and drum players, banners, im- 
mense dragons a block long, drays hauling a thou- 
sand roast pigs to lay upon the tomb—customers 
got a run for their money. Ah Sing had his little 
vanities. He was wont to bestow largesse upon 
all artists who made a good portrait of him. Mons. 


SdILdId ALVI AHL NI OOSIONVYd NVS 


























































































































A. ReErTROSPECT OF BOHEMIA 113 


Bacon made a cartload of statues of his illus- 
trious patron, and was able to retire shortly after. 
Grief among the artists was unutterable when Ah 
Sing returned to China in 1870, his departure 
hastened by the police. 


The sixties were a prosperous decade for the 
artists, who found it the Land of Cockaigne. The 
town was large and as substantial as Boston. The 
very exuberance of the people, their prosperity 
and undisciplined taste gave birth to a rococo, an 
efflorescence of ornaments that was astounding. 
Exteriors were tricked out with pagodas, bell- 
towers, porte-cochéres, garbels and _ verandas, 
laden with serpentine carvings and colored win- 
dows. Homes were crammed with ormolu, bronze 
Arabs, cozy-corners of spears and draperies, 
sculptured fruit and lacquered cherubim. The 
lawns bristled with cast-iron fauna. Domesticity 
and the pseudo-arts interpenetrated. 

Bohemia, peopled by souls in revolt, became 
acutely self-conscious and localized. Most of it 
was to be found atop a fortress of a bank on Clay 
street—penury above the money-bags. The spirit 
of Sefior Arriola, a painter of oil portraits, per- 
vaded the establishment. He had been drowned 
off Acapulco on a return home to visit a fickle in- 
namorata. From Red Dog and Whiskey Gulch 
came red-shirted miners to climb the stairs and get 
their pictures made to send back East. Nobody 
would do but Arriola! 

These customers were obliged by Pascal 


114 THe TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


Loomis, the dog painter, or else by Charles 
Brooks, the salmon virtuoso, or Jules Tavernier, 
who did landscapes. A delightful coterie, all of 
whose names were illuminated on Arriola’s door. 
That door was unique among all doors in the 
world. It was nearly a foot thick, made of solid 
oak, and placed at the head of the staircase, like a 
barricade. That effectively shut out ruffians. Ar- 
riola had carved and painted his coat-of-arms upon 
it. This procedure was followed by the elders. 
In fact, to have one’s name thereon was an honor 
surpassed only by achieving the Prix-de-Rome. 
A most amiable little man was Brooks, the 
doyen of the group. The accuracy with which this 
Meissonier of salmon depicted scales was the 
despair of both artists and icthyologists. His 
method was simple enough, he stencilled them on, 
using a square of Brussels lace. He burned with 
simple fervor before his masterpieces. No painter 
had a larger heart. He had taken a lease on the 
entire floor, and sublet studios only to impecunious 
artists. He lent them cooking utensils, got tick 
for them at the butcher’s, and saw that the vint- 
ners furnished them with the necessary claret. 
Between Brooks’ establishment and the Julien . 
and Gerome ateliers in Paris flitted men of unde- 
niable gifts. And here lived the incomparable 
Harrington, who painted Madonnas and quattro- 
centista saints. 'The other day a prizefighter took 
us to Jim Griffin’s, the referee, whose saloon is 
about the only landmark left of the old Barbary 
Coast. Above the bar was an excellent little 


A. Rerrospect oF BOHEMIA 115 


painting of “Andromeda Chained to the Rocks,” 
with flesh tints and a palpable modelling all too 
rare. It was a Harrington. We lament that 
we know of no other example of this joyous 
Dionysian save that gem in the Andromeda 
Saloon. 

A. burly, roaring Celt, with a bulbous nose and 
plug hat, very much like a hackney-driver, Har- 
rington was the cock of the walk until the advent 
of the Gariboldi. 

This paragon of Bohemia arose in the middle 
seventies. He entered a café on Montgomery 
Street, and called in such stentorian voice for a 
waiter, that words died on the lips of the patrons 
—journalists, models, artists, actors and the like. 
He threw back his dolman to reveal the blood- 
red lining. He demanded a salad. Some wit, 
to mock him, likewise ordered a salad. ‘Then 
fish, a dish of paste, etc. ‘The wit echoed each 
item. 

“Wine in a quart glass!” sang out Gariboldi. 

“Wine in a quart glass!” shouted the wit. 

By this time the whole café was in turmoil. 
Gariboldi twisted the head of his cane and pulled 
out a glittering rapier, felt the point, and with a 
muttered imprecation, thundered: 

“A sword, cameriere! And bring it sharp!” 

The death-like silence was broken by cries of 
delight and a fusillade of handclapping. Gari- 
boldi sprang full-panoplied into renown. ‘The 
town was full of originals, but none more pic- 
turesque than Guglielmo Gariboldi, whose aspect 


116 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


and unique talents dumbfounded even Bohemia. 
The times were made for him. He had marked 
the city for his own, and with his sword split it 
open like an oyster. 

This was the era of the colossal. The treasure- 
box of the Comstock Lode had been broken open. 
The Ophir, the Yellow Jacket, the Chollar-Potosi 
poured into the town a deluge of riches. Great as 
was the display of the mining magnates, it was 
outdone by the railroad kings. The last spike of 
the Southern Pacific had been driven in, and the 
newly-crowned kings spent their wealth in San 
Francisco. 

Mark Hopkins, the Southern Pacific financier, 
was building his castle on Nob Hill. ‘The granite 
wall, with bastions and portcullis, about the lot, 
cost a million dollars, and the house, a masterpiece 
of the Pullman school, cost two million more. It 
was admittedly a fright. 

Gariboldi arrayed himself like a Grand Duke, 
with epaulettes, spent his last dollar on the hire of 
‘an imposing equipage, drove up and demanded the 
job of furnishing that house. He got it. The 
commission was close to $100,000. The Napoleonic 
Hopkins quailed before those personal grandeurs 
and that challenging eye. 

Once a month Gariboldi, with his acolytes, 
jogged down with a buckboard to the railroad 
offices for payment. Sweating clerks loaded the 
rig with two pine boxes, like coffins, filled with 
$10,000 in gold coins. The horses could barely 
crawl up Pine street to the cottage, and an escort 


A ReEtROosPECT OF BOHEMIA 117 


of Bohemians aided the ascent with shouts and 
pulls on a rope. 

The counting of the specie lasted until mid- 
night. These nights were celebrated with a satur- 
nalia of roast ducks, bouillabaise and champagne. 
We have met aged men who shed tears at the 
recollection of these Neronic feasts. 

“Il Magnifico” has left no trace behind him. 
The theaters he decorated in his flamboyant style; 
the Hopkins chateau, with its frieze of wooden 
angels—naught has survived the fire. 

It is to his elder contemporary, Pietro Mezzara, 
a Sicilian stonecutter, that San Francisco owes 
what vestiges remain of its traditional Bohemia. 
He deserves more than a footnote, for he was the 
first sculptor to make a statue of Abraham Lin- 
coln. Not that good Pietro was a rabid Repub- 
lican, or anything like that. He deplored the 
laxity of the Jeff Davis protagonists in not rais- 
ing a fund and getting something equally hand- 
some. But the fact is indisputable that this was 
the first Lincoln, and so Mezzara is secure of his 
place in the hagiology of the West. 

The statue weathered forty years in front of a 
school on Market street. Lincoln was depicted as 
a fiery Balmaceda, thrusting a document at the 
Powers of Darkness. Even Harriet Hosmer— 
disciple of Canova and Gibson though she was— 
confessed to a shudder as she passed by. It was 
a piece of wartime bravura, and its loss in the 
disaster of 1906, is to be measured solely in terms 
of sentiment. 


118 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


A creature of extraordinary zeal, Mezzara 
helped found the art school. It was perched over 
the California Market, a popular charcuterie 
and fish-shop down town. This was a happy 
propinquity. Whenever a pupil or master was 
seized with the pangs of hunger and lacked 
change, all he had to do was to knock off a canvas 
and trade it with the clerks downstairs for a steak 
or a plate of tripe. 

The school throve mightily, like an indigenous 
plant. The Cytherean, though often foggy, air of 
San Francisco was propitious to the aesthetic 
spirit. The mass of the students was Anglo- 
Saxon. The leaven was Italo-Gallic. The élan 
of such leaders as Mezzara infused the academy 
with a heady self-consciousness that manifested 
itself in fétes of volcanic gaiety—masquerades 
with Afghan chiefs, Corsairs, houris, Amazons, the 
cahut, the can-can and the galop infernal. With 
what glee the tragedian Salvini describes these 
Paphian revels in his memoirs! 

Decorous beyond reproach is social life at the 
academy these days. It has become an adjunct 
of the state university, and the elders regard it 
with patriarchal benevolence. 


Some years ago a philanthropic dentist plastered 
the city with statues of himself, cast in a Con- 
necticut iron foundry. They were of a horrific 
ugliness. A band of valiants headed by Gelett 
Burgess made a sortie under cover of darkness, 
lassoed the statues by the Ruskinian pot-hats and 


A. ReEtTrRosPEct oF BOHEMIA 119 


hauled them to the dust. The dentist clamored 
for capital punishment. The Board of Super- 
visors was apathetic. What could one say to 
artists ? 

Two months ago at the annual art exhibition, 
the Brahmins were aghast at a small nude hung 
on the wall. The lady, forsooth, had no shirt on. 
She savored of La Vie Parisienne. So down she 
went to the basement, though the Grand Jury had 
awarded her a prize. 

Art in San Francisco is still praised, though re- 
garded as a little bawdy. But not for worlds could 
we dispense with that vague entity known as Bo- 
hemia. ‘The journals without some lickerish ref- 
erence to artists, those high-priests of nudity, or 
to some lunatic raving in free verse about the 
moon would be as savorless as the breakfast egg 
without salt. 

Pleasant, pleasant fellows those artists we used 
to meet in brighter days. Economic pressure had 
not ground the iron into their souls. In that 
rookery on Polk Street, the last redoubt of Bo- 
hemia, there were a dozen it was a high privilege 
to know. It has been torn down to make way for 
an ornate apartment house. Rent was high at ten 
dollars a month, but the landlord could always be 
stood off. Claret was fifteen cents a quart. They 
sustained their virtues, pride and ideals on the oc- 
casional sale of a sunset or “View of Mt. Tamal- 
pais.” 

There is small room for them now in the busy 
world, and still less for their old haunts in the Latin 


120 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Quarter. Rents have shot up in that region desig- 
nated by mastodonic electric lights as “The Heart 
of Bohemia.” Parnassus is heavily over-capital- 
ized. The Café Momus is become a spaghetti 
Versailles. At the door stands a giant Senegam- 
bian in brass buttons and shako. 

Where congenial souls once talked over the slen- 
derest consummation—that corner is cataclysmic 
with a jazz orchestra whanging and bellowing off 
key while a chocolate-colored lady in green ballet 
skirt gives an imitation of Sophie Tucker. Touch 
not the pasta. Even the Italian waiters are 
looking flabby and scrofulous through lack of the 
antidote for excess of gluten—the tannin present 
in the fermented juice of the grape. Their look 
of hebetude is due to the speeches of the Rotarians 
and the Civic Improvement Club members they 
have had to wait on. It were enough to debilitate 
the most rampagious Camorrista! 

Telegraph Hill, groomed and fitted with a 
palisade for the protection of tourists, is now a 
park. Down the slope flutters the wash of some 
surviving artist, and it flutters in the salt breeze 
like defiant oriflambs. ‘The bay-scape is by Tur- 
ner, palpitant with haze and whorls of mist- 
scarves blown in through the Golden Gate. Dis- 
posed in broken planes of grey and purple the 
city lies on a dozen hills. The colors would de- 
light Veronese. 

Under the group of eucalypti whose fronds 
clatter in the wind sits an artist with coat collar 
buttoned up. He faces the heart of the city, look- 


A ReEtrosPect oF BoHEMIA 121 


ing down Montgomery street, the purlieus of the 
old Bohemians. He adumbrates with gusto the 
towering shafts of the Telephone Building, the 
Standard Oil, the Dollar Line, the Pacific Gas 
and Electric—the enormous piles springing up in 
accordance with the new art of vertical design. 
These are the tongues of the city, the tongues of 
a great metropolis. They are calling him. He 
packs up his kit and whistles for a taxicab. He 
has to deliver a snappy talk on color in commerce 
before the Ad Club. 

The mirthful, leisurely Bohemian days are gone 
with the provincial ways that conditioned them. 
Vale, messiewrs—the play is ended. It was an 
infinitely amusing’ spectacle. 





SAINT PAUL: 


Tuer UNTAMABLE TWIN 
By 
Grace Flandrau 





ST. PAUL 


S is well known, St. Paul, among western 

cities, is not like other girls. She did not rise 
from the blue shirt of the miner and the lumber 
jack, the diamond studs of the faro king or the girl- 
ish ladies of fifty odd who dazzled the frontier with 
their mauve face powder, gold fillings and lemon 
colored hair. On the contrary, she took off at a 
different point altogether and although she has 
made vast and solid progress in the columns of 
Dun and Bradstreet, her career has been, in cer- 
tain other respects, a descent. 

An army post, a great fur company, an amaz- 
ing mad Utopian in Scotland, Indian annuities, 
and the Catholic Church, in the person of a young 
French priest with a singularly fine and charming 
face, are all concerned in the origins of the city. 

In 1819 what is now Minnesota—then a part of 
an immense indeterminate region known as . 
Michigan Territory—was a country physically | 
co-eval with the Garden of Eden. Aside from half 
a dozen quite insignificant exceptions, it re-— 
mained precisely as it had blossomed forth after 
the last glacier oozed its slow way southward a 
few eons ago—if that, indeed, is what the glacier 
did do. The insignificant exceptions were a thin 
scattering of fur-trading posts set down here and 

125 


126 Tur TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


there on lake and ‘stream in the great stillness of 
the wilderness. 

These posts had been established by those gal- 
lant, high living, hard drinking, aristocratic pri- 
vateers of commerce, the Nor’Westers of Canada 
and a rival company known as the Mackinaw, 
and were operated by them with great profit and 
success. But the earnest attention of a rather 
formidable gentleman in New York City, Mr. 
John Jacob Astor, had been focussed for some 
time on the exodus over the border of American 
furs, taken from American Indians and producing 
what should have been American dividends. By 
1816 he had brought about the passage of an act 
forbidding any but American ditizens to trade 
with the Indians within the territorial limits. 

The North West Company moved across the 
border and the American Fur Company, owned 
by Mr. Astor, took over the posts. It retained 
the French-Canadian voyageurs and engagés and 
much of the tradition of the Canadian company. 
Young Americans were put in charge of the posts 
and in some cases Frenchmen who belonged to the 
old company hastily took out Americanization 
papers and remained in the business. 

The government now sent out expeditions to ex- 
plain matters to the Indians. It must be made 
clear to them that they had an entirely new Great 
Father, must respect a new flag, no longer wear 
medals bearing the effigy of King George III, and, 
above all, never trade with the British across the 
line. But the Indians showed a marked preference 


Toe UNTAMABLE TWIN i ys 


for their previous Great Father, for the whiskey, 
trade goods, flags, medals and appurtenances in 
general of their old friends the North Westers 
and, encouraged by the latter, traveled across the 
border whenever possible with their furs. 

To combat British influence with the Indians 
and protect American trade and American traders, 
it was decided to construct the forts along the new 
frontier planned for some years earlier. Fort 
Snelling was accordingly built during 1819-22 at 
the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota 
Rivers—a strategic point between the territories of 
two great warring tribes, the Chippewa and the 
Sioux. Within the precincts of the military reser- 
vation an Indian agent was established and across 
the Minnesota River (then called the St. Peters) at 
a place known as Mendota, the American Fur 
Company established its Northwestern head- 
quarters. 

In 1834 a young man of twenty-three, Henry 
H. Sibley, a clerk and later partner in the com- 
pany, arrived to take charge of the establishment. 
His appearance on the scene marks, in my mind, 
the real beginning of St. Paul. 

We must, however, before we proceed to the 
portentous moment of its birth, briefly glance at 
a most curious and seemingly irrelevant person- 
age, the Scotch Earl of Selkirk. This interesting 
gentleman was of all Uplifters one of the most 
determined and bemused. ‘The victims of his pas- 
sion for service were certain evicted Scotch and 
Irish peasants and, later, the downtrodden of other 


128 Tuer TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


States, lured doubtless from their native lands by 
inspirational advertisements setting forth the ad- 
vantages of the new Utopia. 

This is not the place to tell the singular story 
of this undertaking. Suffice it to say that ship- 
loads of protegés of the good earl were discharged 
on the semi-arctic shores of Hudson’s Bay and 
obliged thence to make their painful way seven 
hundred miles southward by canoe, on foot, or on 
snowshoes to the vast domain he had bought for 
them north and west of Minnesota in Canada. 
They settled on the Red River of the North near 
the mouth of the Assiniboine and there for some 
years they variously froze, starved to death or 
were butchered by the bois brilés—a crew of 
savage half-breeds set upon them by the North 
West Company, which objected to having its 
trapping grounds spoiled by settlers. 

We however are only interested in a band of 
Swiss watchmakers who, driven out, it is said by 
floods, grasshoppers, and rats, escaped from Sel- - 
kirk’s Utopia and made their way southward to 
Fort Snellino. Here some of them remained, 
under the quite erroneous belief that they would 
be welcome on the reservation. ‘They were not. 
They were twice compelled to move from their 
houses and small plantations under a misappre- 
hension as to the extent of the military reserve. 
At last they got safely off it and established them- 
selves on what has since become the center of St. 
Paul’s business district. 

There was in the vicinity of Fort Snelling and 


THe UNTAMABLE TWIN 129 


especially at Mendota, a considerable sprinkling 
of French and half-breed voyageurs who had set- 
tled there with their families—enough good Cath- 
olics to warrant the maintenance of a priest among 
them. When the Selkirk pilgrims started a new 
community across the Mississippi River from 
Mendota the good father decided they too must 
have a church. So in the year 1841 he built a 
log chapel among them and called it St. Paul’s. 

I am aware of an irreverent rumor that the 
City of St. Paul really derives from a slough sev- 
eral miles south known as Pig’s Eye. An occa- 
sional writer still states that St. Paul was orig- 
inally known as Pig’s Eye. ‘This is not the case. 
Father Galtier records that the small community 
of Pig’s Eye was indicated to him as a possible 
location for his chapel, but that he chose the Swiss 
settlement, as it offered the best steamboat land- 
ing in the whole region—a fact of immense signi- 
ficance in the history of St. Paul. 

Besides the docile Swiss agriculturalists, the 
only non-military residents of the region were the 
before mentioned hangers-on about Fort Snelling 
and the trading post at Mendota and, strung 
safely along the east bank of the river, which was 
neither military reserve nor Indian land, the 
whiskey traders, who nefariously inebriated both 
soldiers and savages. These various elements 
gradually congregated at St. Paul’s during the 
earliest days, and French was almost universally 
spoken there. But the men who were to occupy 
positions of prominence and power and to put their 


130 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


stamp on the community did not rise from this 
stratum. They were superimposed upon it. They 
were for the most part Mr. Astor’s, or later Mr. 
Chouteau’s, young men, imported from the East- 
ern States to take charge of their posts in Min- 
nesota:—Pratte Chouteau & Co. of St. Louis, 
bought out the Western branch of Astor’s busi- 
ness in 1834, 

Now the fur business, which was about as ethical 
as buccaneering in the days of the Virgin queen, 
was nevertheless the aristocrat of commerce. From 
the time when Prince Rupert, cousin of that most 
fashionable Stuart king, Charles II, became presi- 
dent or general manager of the Hudson’s Bay 
Company, it has possessed tradition, manner, a 
certain chic. This the Nor’ Westers inherited from 
the Hudson’s Bay, and the American Fur Com- 
pany took it from both. When the good old 
Nor’ Westers set out from Montreal to meet at 
the half way house on Lake Superior the winter- 
ing partners from the far west, their birch bark 
canoes carried silver plate and champagne and 
French cooks into the wilderness. They took their 
valets to dress them for dinner, polish their silver 
buckles, and disengage them from the débris un- 
der the banquet table when the still forest dawn 
stole into the lofty dining hall at Fort William. 
But it was not all champagne and silver plate. 
There was an aristocracy of character that must 
not be overlooked. 

The factor in charge of a remote fur post was 
carefully chosen and was a kind of king. His 


Tuer UNTAMABLE TWIN 131 


power was absolute. His job was difficult, dan- 
gerous, and delicate. His voyageurs and engagés 
were ignorant, wildly superstitious, and unruly. 
He must establish a lasting ascendancy over them. 
He had to satisfy, overawe, and exploit savages 
who outnumbered his men hundreds or thousands 
to one, and inspire in them both fear and liking. 
The Indians were as capricious, intuitive, un- 
reasonable, and sharply intelligent as children and 
as sensitive to personal quality. They recognized 
and intensely responded to dignity, courage, and 
good manners. ‘Those men, it will be found on ex- 
amining the history of a period now gone forever, 
who had the widest influence with the American 
savages, when the latter were still powerful and to 
be feared, were not only, as Ouida would put it, 
Men but Gentlemen,—if gentlemen in the Eliza- 
bethan rather than the Methodist Episcopal sense. 

The men who dominated early St. Paul and 
whose power continued long after pioneer days, 
were with some notable exceptions, fur traders. 
Not the free, so called whiskey traders, but the 
representatives of responsible firms—chiefly the 
American Fur Company. And while St. Paul was 
a ruffian infant of “birch roofed cabins and whis- 
key shops” these men were still scattered about the 
territory in charge of their various posts. 

It is too bad that there should have been no 
contemporaneous chronicler with a salty tongue 
and an eye for reality, to have made adequate por- 
traits of those young adventurers. All Western 
Americans are familiar with the thick biographical 


132 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


subscription books full of beards and bombast 
which have visualized for us the daring, royster- 
ing, serious, law-making, law-breaking, law-en- 
forcing youngsters of the frontier. We see them 
as middle-aged rabbis in frock coats, with all the 
playfulness of a Baptist undertaker burying a 
Rockefeller. I think by the time pioneers get old 
and have paid many fifty dollars to have their 
autographed steel engraved portraits in many 
such books, and each and every one has an Hon. 
in front of his name, they think of themselves that 
way. 

But there really was a time when they were 
young and wore, not beards—oh, I believe they 
did, even in their teens—but beaded moccasins 
and coon-skin caps and bright sashes, and danced 
Chippewa mazourkas at Long Kate’s and at all 
night balls in the cabin of Bottineau, the half 
breed. | 

There was young Sibley at Mendota: a crack 
shot, expert canoe man, so good a boxer that in 
the whole territory only “Bully” Wells could 
stand up against him; head of the American Fur 
Company’s wide spread business in that region, 
and, when scarcely out of the twenties, justice of 
the peace of a county as big as several European 
states; a power among the formidable Sioux, so 
liked, trusted, and feared by them that no govern- 
ment negotiations could be carried on without 
him. 

There was Henry M. Rice, like Sibley a young 
man of excellent family and striking personal 


THe UNTAMABLE TwINn 183 


dignity, trading now among the Winnebago, now 
among the Chippewa, obtaining over them by the 
charm, courtesy, and tact of his address an 
ascendancy which surpassed if anything Sibley’s 
power with the Sioux. Both men were to win nat- 
ional responsibilities and distinctions later on. 

Oakes, a young New Englander, and Dr. 
Charles Wulf Borup, a cultivated Dane, repre- 
sented the Fur Company at Yellow Lake and 
later became, in St. Paul, the first bankers of the 
territory. 

At Pembina on the Red River of the North, 
just south of the Canadian line, Norman W., Kitt- 
son traded with the Chippewa and the French 
Crees and shipped furs, buffalo tongues, and pem- 
mican to Mendota in the famous Red River 
wooden carts. He himself frequently made the 
long journey on snow shoes or dog sledge, not see- 
ing a human habitation during the whole tive hun- 
dred miles. Later he was to enter into partner- 
ship with James J. Hill. Their steamboats were 
to navigate this river and Kittson was to partici- 
pate to some extent in Hill’s great railroad enter- 
prise which opened the valley to immigration. 
Kittson was a step grandson (whatever that may 
be) of Alexander Henry, early explorer, trader, 
and partner of the North West Company, whose 
diary is the most revealing and fascinating piece 
in all the original literature of the fur trade. 

Martin McLeod, stationed at Lac qui Parle, 
was a Scotch Canadian described by a contem- 
porary as, “a man of commanding presence, cul- 


1384 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


tured intellect—eloquent, dignified and charm- 
ing.” With the annual supplies sent to him 
through Sibley, went important historical and 
scientific works and French classics in the original. 
It was to McLeod that later much excellent edu- 
cational legislation was due. 

I have alas seen no notice that these gentlemen 
were teetotalers or that they failed to fight and 
swear and, frequently, during the hot political 
fights of the fifties, to fall out with each other and 
fling about unpleasant epithets and accusations 
which, however, always failed to stick. And as to 
women it may be said that one or two of them mar- 
ried their squaws but mostly they didn’t. In fact, I 
think it is likely they were many things (the 
possessors of good manners included) which some 
of our Latter Day reformers would have 
condemned wholesale. Yet their forcefulness, 
breadth of view, public spiritedness, loyalty and— 
whatever the accepted ethics of politics or the fur 
trade—their personal integrity have seldom since 
been surpassed. In the late forties Minnesota, 
which had been successively a part of Michigan, 
Iowa, and Wisconsin Territories, decided to be- 
come a territory herself. Sibley was sent to 
Washington to bring it about and in 1849 the ob- 
ject was achieved. Minnesota Territory was cre- 
ated with St. Paul as capital city. 

The fates were kind to the infant community. 
The administration was inspired to send out as 
territorial governor a man actually fitted for the 
job. The happy appointee was a former Con- 


Ture UNTAMABLE TWIN 135 


gressman from Pennsylvania, Alexander Ramsey 
by name. The territory was at this time enor- 
mous, including besides Minnesota much of the 
Dakotas and extending westward to the Missouri 
River and so remote that the Ramseys’ neighbors 
wondered whether they could reach it by sailing 
round the Horn or crossing the Isthmus of 
Panama! It had a large savage population and 
presented difficult problems as regarded Indian 
affairs, Indian trade, and the pressure of immi- 
gration already impatient to cross the Mississippi 
and overflow the Indian lands beyond. 

The territorial governor was thirty-four, young 
it seems, but older than most of the men who were 
making the history of the state. The frontier, 
however, could be a beneficent and powerful 
teacher. Let this memoir from the pen of a man 
who was later to achieve many distinctions speak 
for these youthful adventurers, of whom he was 
one: 

“If a young man of ability migrates to a coun- 
try over which no government has yet extended, 
he finds himself confronted with the solution of 
large issues. Fundamental and philosophic prob- 
lems force themselves upon him; he becomes an 
original thinker himself and finds a virgin field on 
which to test the experimental creations of his 
genius.” 

Ramsey was abundantly a man of ability. He 
promptly and efficiently organized the territory, 
convened the first legislative assembly and de- 
livered four remarkable messages, practical and 


136 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


prophetic, shining with common sense and with 
real wisdom. The legislative session opened, we 
are told, “with prayer” and as the governor and 
many of the influential members became St. Paul’s 
foremost citizens, it is pertinent to glance at its 
activities. 

Besides routine administrative measures, much 
of the legislation was, to quote a contemporary, 
“of a moral and educational nature.” It provided 
generously for free schools, founded a historical 
society, righteously established stringent Sunday 
laws, prohibited sale or gift of liquor to the 
Indians and licensed the general sale; while at its 
second meeting in 1851 it decided upon and made 
ample provision for the creation of a State Uni- 
versity, and also this remarkable body of fron- 
tiersmen revised the code of laws left over from 
the previous régime and did it well. 

Sibley was sent to Washington as territorial 
delegate; H. M. Rice, Borup, Oakes and other 
prominent traders came to St. Paul to live; 
James Goodhue, the notable editor of the first 
newspaper, the Pioneer, began his brief but bril- 
liant career in St. Paul. He was aggressively a 
Puritan; he stood violently for law, order and vir- 
tue—so violently indeed that within three years he 
had died as the result of a shooting and stabbing 
affair. 

He had, as was the journalistic manner of the 
day, roundly insulted a political opponent. The 
brother of the latter stabbed Goodhue three times 
in the stomach while Goodhue was engaged in 


THE UNTAMABLE TWIN 187 


shooting at him. The populace joined in the fray 
and a brief but lively scene of stone throwing and 
clubbing took place. Both of the principals died 
subsequently as a result of the encounter. 

But occurrences such as this were rare; St. 
Paul was, for a frontier city, decidedly orderly. 
It must be remembered that precisely at this time 
California gold called like a siren from the Pacific 
coast. But the long transcontinental journey was 
full of danger and the reward at the end as prob- 
lematic as the fall of dice. It was the adventurous, |: 
the high spirited, and the desperate who streamed — 
across the deserts and over the mountain passes 
to the Pacific—those who despised danger or dis- 
dained work or were expert in relieving the lucky 
of their easy money. A very different class pro- 
ceeded safely up the Mississippi in comfortable 
steamboats to the city at the head of navigation. 
The heroic days of the fur trade were about over; 
the pine forests, waiting to create a bright new 
galaxy of millionaires, had not, although exploited 
to some extent, as yet attracted widespread atten- 
tion; the richness of the iron deposits was of course 
not known. Climate, natural beauty, the privilege 
of hard work in the fields, and the commercial 
possibilities of a growing river port were the 
solider and more prosaic lure of Minnesota and at- 
tracted a corresponding class of men and women. 

As to commerce, the Indian trade -must 
not be overlooked. I have said the fur trade 
was declining. But the Indians were receiving 
large cash annuities for lands sold to the govern- 


138 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ment, and St. Paul and neighboring posts were 
the disbursement headquarters. ‘To the traders 
who flocked to the payments with their beads and 
kettles, blankets, whiskey and bright calicoes, 
specie was even more welcome than muskrat skins. 
The gold passed through the hands of the Indians 
as through a sieve, into the coffers of the trader- 
merchants, and thus the infant St. Paul was 
nourished to prosperity. 

The Sioux lands immediately west of the Mis- 
sissippi were acquired by the government. The 
city grew rapidly. A constant stream of immi- 
grants flowed through the small port. Profes- 
sional men of considerable distinction—lawyers 
and journalists in particular—attracted by the 
beauty of site and healthfulness of climate, per- 
haps too by the reputed “gentility” of the place, 
arrived and became part of the pioneer body. 

The prominent pioneers married and for their 
wives went back to the places and generally 
superior social class from which they themselves 
derived. Ladies in flounces and sacques and long 
lace mitts and tiny perched-up hats, holding bot- 
tles of smelling salts in their hands, stepped 
daintily off the gangplanks into the mud of the 
levees and brought to their frontier houses, smell- 
ing of new pine lumber and frequently of Sioux 
and Chippewa callers in smoky blankets, the man- 
ner of life to which they had been accustomed. 

In 1854 the Chicago and Rock Island railroad 
was finished to Rock Island, Illinois. In truly 
-modern style the management organized an excur- 


THe UNTAMABLE ‘TWIN 139 


sion. A large group of prominent Eastern people 
were invited to make the trip over the new road 
and on up the river in steamboats to St. Paul. 
Twelve hundred important and highly respectable 
persons, including “many of the divinity,” are said 
to have accepted and to have returned to the Kast 
spreading lyrical reports of the beauties of the 
wide river, the wooded bluffs, flowering prairies, 
sweet untarnished air and gracious stillness of this 
empty Eden known as Minnesota. A particularly 
modern note which I cannot refrain from quot- 
ing is the sermon preached by one of the enthusi- 
astic divines: title, “Railroads in the Higher and 
Religious Aspects.” “My hearers! Some of 
you have tickets that will lead you to Hell. The 
car of death is hastening on. We urge you to 
change that ticket. Christ is always in his of- 
fice——”’ 

All in all the publicity which followed the ex- 
cursion helped to increase the enormous incoming 
flood of people the following year. St. Paul went 
into a boom state. Real estate soared, interest 
rates soared—to 5% a month; everything and 
everybody soared; fine raiment and high stepping 
horses appeared; gamblers, speculators, crooks of 
all kinds—a most un-St. Paul-like type of people 
began to arrive. Then the panic of ’57 struck the 
little city like a cyclone.” Banks broke; money 
practically disappeared; the dubious high finan- 
ciers fled away to more propitious fields, and St. 
Paul gradually settled down into the stride that 
has been hers ever since. 


140 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Once more the fur trade came to the rescue. 
About this time the Hudson’s Bay Company aban- 
doned its long established canoe route via streams, 
rivers, the Great Lakes, and the St. Lawrence to 
the Atlantic. It began to ship its furs in bond 
by Red River ox cart to St. Paul and thence by 
steamboat and railway to Eastern ports. The 
long trains now swelled to five hundred carts and 
driven by the picturesque bois brilés screamed on 
ungreased wooden axles to the St. Paul levees. 
When the carts returned down the Red River val- 
ley to Canada they were filled partly with goods 
sent in bond from England, but also with supplies 
bought from the merchants of St. Paul. 

Let us now glance at the foundations of St. 
Paul’s social life as they were being laid in these 
important fifties, and as they have endured pretty 
well into the present century, almost to the time 
of that nemesis of all foundations, the late war. 
That they had been thoroughly shaken and were 
on the verge of collapse some time before heredi- 
tary St. Paul would dream of admitting it, is not 
_ surprising. Hereditary St. Paul—and the core 
_ and kernel of the city is still hereditary—does not 
admit things and never has admitted them. To 
err is human, to admit it is cynical. And St. Paul 
abhors cynicism. But to go back 

I have before me some letters. They were writ- 
ten during the fifties by three New England girls 
who came out at different times to keep house for 
their brothers in the Indian trade. Somehow, 
these letters give one rather a heartache—they are 





Tur UNTAMABLE TWIN 141 


so young, feminine, superior, mid-Victorian, and 

real. And now all the writers, so sure of their 

good breeding and immortal youth, are dead. I 

knew one when she was an old woman—touch- 

ingly like the girl of frontier gentility. 

A few extracts may epitomize the beginnings of 
fashionable St. Paul. 

“This has been such a week of dissapation; Mon- 
day we were all invited to a pleasant little mob 
at the governor’s; it was a truly enjoyable party 
and very select. ‘Tuesday a brilliant party at Fort 
Snelling. The general handed me to table. I wore 
my flounced muslin and pink sacque with three 
rows of lace about the neck and two about the 
sleeves. Wednesday Miss B and the Colonel 
came in a buggy and we went a Sy ae apes 
Thursday night a tableau party at the F 
Saturday there was a surprise at the 8 iS! ay 
governor was my beau for the evening and the first 
thing he did, I had hardly got there, when he came 
up and wanted me to promenade. So I took his 
arm.” 

The polite “dissapation” seems to have been 
pretty continuous. “We were asked to Mr. and 
Mrs. W ’s at the Winsor House. There were 
just enough ladies to get up a cotillion.” Again: 
“A fine dance at Mazourka Hall. Not too many 
of the newcomers, .so quite select. The ladies 
dressed finely in white satin skirts and lace illusion 
over dresses.” Again: “The general sent his aid 
to invite us to a review of the Light Cavalry at 
the Fort, and to attend a party in his quarters 














142 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


afterwards. 'The first officers of the country are 
here to attend a court martial and there are three 
young ladies from Virginia visiting. It was very 
select.” 

The pest of lectures too was in full swing as the 
decade advanced. Mr. Y- talks on “Europe: 
Their Manners and Customs’; Mr. L on 
“The Next Generation”; an Armenian missionary 
on “Syria’—“Church crowded and they put seats 
in the aisles. He was very smart.” Again: “Bayard 
Taylor lectured on Moscow last evening. It wasn’t 
much.” | 

Calling, it seems, was a veritable monomania. 
“T have thirty or forty calls to make this week; 
We do not call at the Y *s—she is not quite a 
lady. I called on Mr. R ’s bride. Felt I must. 
"Tis said her father was a mechanic in Hartford 
and that she has been a governess. ‘Too bad to 
let such a rumor get about. ‘The general is bring- 
ing that Mr. Sumner of Boston to call. I have on 
my delaine and black silk apron. When not busy 
I put my hands in the pockets. I have got my 
rosettes on my wrists. Thursday the Judge and 
Baron Jaw-Breaker” (a Swiss baron) “called and 
we went to their saloon for ice creams. Sabbath 
morning attended service at Christ’s Episcopal, 
_ though we usually go to Mr. Neil’s” (St. Paul’s 
beginnings were strongly Presbyterian). “Mr. 
R and Mr. S attended us home. In the 
afternoon three gentlemen left cards but we were 
not receiving. Monday the boys got back from 
payments. Brought Hole-in-the-day and two other 




















THEe UNTAMABLE TWIN 143 


Indians to call. Then Peter brought an Indian 
Agent from below and wife to stop. I was glad 
when they left, they were such plain people. New 
Year’s Day we had sixty calls, not so many as last 
year. I wore my black with red sacque, flowing 
undersleeves, and mitts.” 

As to New Year’s Day I will quote from the 
memoir of a prominent jurist: “My first New 
Year’s Day in St. Paul was in 1854; it was my 
entrée to St. Paul society. Four of us, all frisky 
young fellows, started with a good team and made 
one hundred and fifty calls by midnight. Whether 
we drank at every fountain that gushed for us on 
that day I will leave to the imagination, after 
saying that only the vaguest and most delightful 
impressions of the event linger in my memory.” 
Indeed the terrific gentility of this upper circle was 
in no way impaired by the notable prevalence of 
excellent wines, chiefly champagne, at all their 
gatherings—picnics, dances, Indian treaty and 
political meetings, dinners, and teas. And the 
champagne seems always to have been set off with 
oysters. Now as oysters in Minnesota even in these 
days of rapid transportation are something of an 
adventure, their presence in that epoch of summer 
steamboats and winter stages (occasional and most 
uncertain stages) does not cease to puzzle. 

We will take leave of our New England sisters 
with one more quotation: 

“Tom and a member of Congress have been 
waiting two days for Francois P to guide them 
to the Indian country. But he is after an actress, 





144 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Bah—think of them waiting two days for him to 
gallant a dancing girl. And Sunny Marsh too, 
gone as far as Galena they say, with that Sally 
St. Claire!” 

For alas, a far racier company existed outside 
the select circle we have visited. It was made up 
of free traders, whiskey sellers, French mixed 
bloods and drifters of all kinds. Among the latter, 
a contemporary writes, were “many gentlemen of 
refinement” who “being too fond of their cups 
came here to overcome the habit. The worst 
place,” he adds with conviction, “they could have 
chosen.” 

One of the earliest meeting places of these con- 
vivial spirits was the bar, sitting room, “‘and every- 
thing else’ of Jackson’s house—whence at late 
hours they often repaired in a body to one of the 
informal all night dances perpetually going on in 
the houses of the French half breeds. It also ap- 
pears that most of the gentlemen who so punctili- 
ously left cards, attended pleasant little mobs, 
handed the flounced ladies to table or walked home 
with them after one of Mr. Neil’s excellent ser- 
mons, were the handiest of all with the demijohn 
at Jackson’s and similar hardy resorts. 

St. Paul, however, was not without its growing 
body of “plain people” who frowned alike on the 
‘ champagne and oysters of the upper crust and the 
trade whiskey and half breed balls of the lower. 
Of these the immortal spokesman is the author of 
an edifying opus called “Floral Home.” 'The lady 
came out as school teacher and also opened the 


Tur UNTAMABLE TWIN 145 


first Sabbath School, though not without misgiv- 
ings that the “Romish priests” and “emissaries of 
Papacy” might interfere with the attendance. 

In a chapter classically headed ‘““Rum’s Doings,” 
she writes: 

“The bottle was the unfailing attendant on every 
occasion, and stood confessed the life of every com- 
pany.” She attended an excursion to the falls of 
St. Anthony in company with the “first citizens.” 
When the refreshment was produced she was im- 
pelled to observe severely that that was the first 
time in her life she had been in a company where 
it was used. “Then,” replied a gentleman whose 
elegance of manner she had previouslv noted, “you 
are entitled to the first drink.” 

Follow truly horrifying and doubtless quite true 
instances of Rum’s black doings in the community; 
murders, suicides, delirium tremens, and the fre- 
quent accident of tumbling into the snow on win- 
ter nights and freezing to death. ‘Then, in the 
midst of the “moral darkness’”’ about her, she hears 
of the beginning of a temperance society. “Vic- 
tory, Victory, Victory,” she cries, only to deplore 
later in mixed and disillusioned metaphor that, al- 
though the organization had “laid the ax at the 
root of the tree—the monster, with its thousand 
heads, lives on.” 

She is much shocked by the nakedness of the in- 
fant and semi-nakedness of the adult savages, and 
the frequency with which they preferred their own 
superstitions and the “way which goeth down to 
death” to the “claims of the Gospel.” Neverthe- 


146 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


less, in revealing a proposal of marriage made to 
her by a young chief she does not fail to advise us 
of his proud, graceful dignity of bearing, his mag- 
nificence of ornament and apparel, his eagle eyes 
and rich sonority of voice—and piquantly adds 
that, upon being refused, he tried (unsuccessfully ) 
to borrow a dollar. 

The writer did not suffer from a lack of con- 
genial company. ‘The region seems to have been 
pretty well dotted with missions, and churches of 
all denominations multiplied rapidly in St. Paul— 
where they were enthusiastically supported. 

Important events meantime had been taking 
place; Minnesota Territory had become a state 
with Sibley as governor, and an attempt been made 
to change the capital from St. Paul to St. Peter. 
This undesirable measure received a majority of 
votes and would have been carried had not St. 
Paul’s leading citizens resorted to a simple device. 
The committeeman who had the important bill in his 
keeping was induced to hide in a hotel bedroom 
where he remained, quite drunk, until the time 
limit for the act to become law had expired. He 
has since developed in local tradition to a semi- 
saintly figure and is called the savior of St. Paul. 

Rice, as United States senator, fought for land 
grant railroads; important but, at the time, abor- 
tive legislation was passed and the sixties came in 
without a mile of railroad completed in Minnesota. 

The Civil War, long threatened, now broke out, 
and the following year a smaller but more immedi- 
ate catastrophe took St. Paul curiously by sur- 


THE UNTAMABLE TWIN 147 


prise. The community had maintained the usual 
smug attitude toward the Indian, characteristic of 
pioneers since the days of the Puritans, who first 
“fell upon their knees and then upon the Abor- 
igines.” The St. Paul citizenry did not precisely 
fall upon the aborigines but it fell upon their titles 
and annuities. Subconsciously it denied their right 
to exist; it never dreamed of looking upon them 
as human beings, but simply as nuisances—irrele- 
vant objects who were very much in the way: “The 
Indians have the small pox. Never mind, it will 
do them good,” writes a young trader. 

So we see St. Paul in lace mitts, unimagina- 
tively dancing cotillions and drinking tea on the 
extreme edge of a savage abyss—a region lately 
the property of a race still essentially belonging 
to the stone age: a race which, as realization 
dawned and it saw itself without land and most 
of the time without money and food, forgot the. 
half understood treaties and burned with hatred 
and revenge. 

Quite suddenly, a thousand of the immigrants 
who had been deposited on the levees of St. Paul, 
or had plodded through her unpaved streets in 
prairie wagons and settled in the “Suland,” were 
butchered, thousands of others driven from their 
homes and their property destroyed. 

Ramsey, once more governor, acted with his 
usual efficiency and promptness. While Flandrau, 
extemporaneously in command, turned the Indians 
back from New Ulm, the Civil War recruits col- 
lected at Fort Snelling were put under Sibley 


148 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


and sent in pursuit and the rebellion was ultimately 
put down. 

With the termination of this affair, St. Paul’s 
frontier period may be said to have closed. 

For the next twenty years pioneer names and 
personalities dominated to a large extent the ad- 
ministrative, legal, banking and social life of St. 
Paul, although politically such powers as Doran 
and Kelly had arisen to control the Democratic 
party; and the brilliant Cushman K. Davis had ap- 
peared to become one of the stars of the Republi- 
can—of which Ramsey, territorial and state gover- 
nor, United States senator and cabinet minister 
successively, remained the outstanding figure. 

Other new and important forces were at the 
same time quietly developing. Long before the 
arrival of railroads, the head of navigation of the 
Mississippi was a natural transportation center. 
It was the objective point of wilderness travel by 
canoe, dog sledge, and wooden ox cart. The chief 
articles of early traffic—buffalo robes, fine furs, 
jerked meat, pemmican, tallow, Indian work— 
came up the Red River valley from Pembina 
to the trading post at Mendota and later to 
St. Paul. Here they met and were transferred to 
the steamboats ascending the river with supplies 
from St. Louis, Galena, and the gradually ap- 
proaching railroad heads. After railroad building 
began in Minnesota, St. Paul by orderly economic 
sequence continued to be the chief transportation 
center of the Northwest; while the simultaneous 
growth of her key industry, the wholesale business, 


SAILNGAGS FHL NI TONVd “LS 








THe UNTAMABLE TWIN 149 


was equally a by-product of the location of the city 
and a logical progression from the early Indian 
and river trade. It is from this developing 
merchant class, far more than from the gallant 
frontiersmen, that the actual St. Paul derives. 

During the seventies and eighties the place grew 
from a straggling, unpaved village to a small city. 
Its social life, following the lines laid down in the 
fifties, continued select and complacent and church 
going, but put on more elaborate metropolitan 
Juxuries and frills. It went on, with some excep- 
tions, keeping its doors firmly closed to “plain 
people” and was augmented by newcomers from 
equally select circles of Eastern and Southern com- 
munities. The question “Who was she?’ continued 
severely to be asked. 

Turreted, spired, porticoed, cupolaed “palatial 
residences” began to be built along the sightly 
avenue that commands the river; fine driving and 
saddle horses appeared, flashing carriages, high 
tandem carts, unicorns, and four-in-hands. I like 
to think of the beautiful and dashing Mrs. 
It took two grooms, we are told, to hold the horses 
she rode and when she dismounted she patted the 
foaming nostrils of her steed with handkerchiefs of 
solid real lace and then lightly tossed them in the 
gutter. 

Champagne and oysters continued to be pleas- 
antly prevalent, venison, pheasants, wild geese, 
quail, and prairie chickens still enhanced the loaded 
dinner tables. Bank presidents loaned money on 
the security of good friendship and the glamorous 





150 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


memory of frontier adventure shared. Money as 
such had not mattered seriously in frontier times; 
gain was always overshadowed by adventure; new 
beginnings were easy to make. The pioneer tradi- 
tion was, for the most part, lavish, casual, and 
elegant. Then along came the financial hurricane 
of ’93 and blew down all the cupolas that were 
not very firmly hooked into a rock foundation— 
and many of them were not. 

From this time the character of St. Paul 
changed. The nabobs of the fifties and earlier were 
getting old and dying. They left no fortunes. The 
influence and character of the merchants began 
more and more to be felt. They were not adven- 
turers, but preéminently business men. They 
built slowly and firmly; they saved; they put the 
seal of their solidity upon the city. 

Slowly too the formidable personality of James 
J. Hill, one of America’s greatest commercial and 
far more than merely commercial figures, had 
emerged. As this is St. Paul’s story and not Mr. 
Hill’s, we shall not dwell on his achievement. He 
made St. Paul the headquarters of his powerful 
railroad, with its rock-like financial foundation, its 
vitality, its capacity for continuous growth. It 
peopled the Red River valley, the northern reaches 
of Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and Ore- 
gon. The road was Mr. Hill’s personal creation. 
He did everything but lay the rails and punch 
the tickets. 'The government had no part in its 
financing and, as many of Mr. Hill’s stockholders 
and associates were men of financial eminence in 


Tur UNTAMABLE TWIN 151 


England and on the Continent, as well as in New 
York, St. Paul, through him, became a figure in 
international commerce. 

Its reactions toward Mr. Hill are interesting. 
It has sentimentalized him as a poet, prophet, seer 
and saint; cried him down as a man-eating tyrant, 
the assassin of Dutch bondholders, poor but honest 
trainmen and suffering superintendents; has given 
him torchlight processions and accused him of 
throttling St. Paul by turning it into a One Man 
Town. 

This dire and cryptic reproach has been es- 
pecially advanced as the reason why Minneapolis, 
a city situated some miles west of us, should have 
somewhat exceeded us in population. The One 
Man theory quite overshadowed other reasons for 
the greater development of Minneapolis such as 
the huge flour (and originally lumber) mills which 
her water power created; the preposterous immen- 
sity of the State University situated within her 
borders; the singular civic enthusiasm of her lead- 
ing citizens—to say nothing of my own private 
theory that it was also brought about by her pos- 
session of a large population of shrewd, long 
headed Scandinavians instead of our corresponding 
immigrant class of soft speaking, darling, shiftless 
Irish from Galway looking toward the Arran Isles. 

The one way that Mr. Hill did contribute to 
the growth of Minneapolis rather than St. Paul, 
was by populating the Great Open Spaces to west- 
ward with agriculturists who, when they came back 
to civilization to spend their hard earned dollars, 


152 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


struck Minneapolis first and stayed there until 
their money was gone. 

But it must not be supposed that St. Paul spends 
much time in deploring census reports or anything 
else. The whole point is missed if St. Paul is not 
shown as she is, or at least has been most of her 
life—notably satisfied—complacent I should say, 
_if the word did not carry a slur. 

And I would not have it carry a slur. Com- 
placency is what we need. Americans and Ameri- 
can cities suffer from a disguised inferiority com- 
plex. That is the reason for all this boosting, 
bragging, and community-spirit-izing the hard 
boiled business of making a living. 

St. Paul, in spite of the advent of many impor- 
tant and powerful newcomers is still, at the core 
and kernel hereditary. The sons and grandsons 
of the sound merchant and banking class, still give 
their stamp to the community—Griggs, Gordons, 
Saunders, Finches, Deans, Noyes, Ordways, Skin- 
ners, Lindekes, and many others—the fortunes they 
have inherited were not made quickly or specula- 
tively, a tradition of conservatism has-been handed 
down withthem. Also they are safe and considerable 
enough so that their owners do not feel the urge 
that makes boosters and go-getters. Undoubtedly, 
like almost everybody else, these men want more 
money than they have and try to get it, but like 
civilized people they do not gloat and sing hymns 
over the process and talk about “service not gain” 
and indulge in the many tedious hypocrisies which 
some people sum up in the word Rotariarism— 


Tor UNTAMABLE TWIN 153 


whether fairly or not I cannot say. I have no per- 
sonal knowledge of Rotarians, or of their alleged 
first naming, back slapping noon orgies. Although 
they do boost, the first gentlemen of St. Paul keep 
it rather dark; although they join things they do it 
languidly. They are not “joiners” at heart. Yes, 
they are still individualists in this age of lodges, 
slogans, and alleged community spirit. 

When something really important to the city has 
to be done they occasionally (our civic spirit is 
notably not robust) do it. But they do it under 
the leadership of one of their own coterie, a man 
like Gordon for instance, grandson of Dr. Charles 
Wulf Borup, far more than through the commerce 
organizations, which they, like the citizens of other 
modern communities, nevertheless maintain. 

There is the Association. A vague murmur will 
arise about its having “brought the Ford plant, 
the Armour packing plant, Montgomery Ward,” 
and so forth. Personally I believe it more prob- 
able that these prizes were captured by the method 
outlined above. Wishing to be fair I wrote and 
asked the Association what it had done. I quote 
from its reply: 

“Do you wish facts relative to the Saint Paul 
Association or the city of St. Paul? Your letter 
clearly asks for ‘literature describing the aims and 
achievements in St. Paul of the Association.’ ” 

I did not write again fearing that they would 
once more assault my dazed ears and eyes by ob- 
serving, You have told us quite clearly what you 
want— What is it? 


154 Tut TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Socially St. Paul has conformed: that is to say, 
society in the sense of exclusiveness or even of a 
somewhat petty snobbishness, the sense that pre- 
vailed from the fifties well into the present century, 
even until the war, does not exist—the society that 
meant and exacted “background,” good manners, 
the appearance of morality, and the concealment 
of knees, thighs, and other innocent anatomical 
phenomena. Individuals possessing the old stand- 
ards, as they are called, exist in surprising num- 
bers in St. Paul, even in large groups, but not as 
a united and controlling group, not as society. 
Has jazz come and to a certain extent conquered ? 
Hereditary St. Paul, which, as we have stated, does 
not admit things, says no. Personally—but then 
I am not, in that sense, hereditary St. Paul. 

Doubtless the core of the business life will suc- 
cumb to the modern mores; perhaps it is already 
definitely beginning to do so. When it does there 
will be even more Ford plants, bigger and better 
slaughter houses and vaster census returns. With 
which hereditary St. Paul will (at heart) be rather 
bored. It is satisfied with its size, it loves its 
wooded boulevards curving about its sightly river, 
and what still remains of the quiet of its elm and 
oak shaded avenues. How many times have I heard 
it complain of recent developments ?— 

— “Tf this goes on we'll get bigger ‘and bigger, 
and then,” they exclaim aghast, “we might as well 
be living in Minneapolis.” 


PORTLAND: 


A Pincrim’s PRoGREsS 
By 
Dean Collins 


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PORTLAND 


IGHTY odd years ago, Portland, Oregon, 

landed on the map of the Pacific Northwest, 
possessed of a full developed New England con- 
science and fleeing from the wrath to come. It 
was sired by New England traders, out of the 
settlement of Methodist missionaries at Oregon 
City, twelve miles up the Willamette River. It 
came into existence a comparatively ordered com- 
- munity, planted on the soil of two civilizations 
that had preceded it. This made it needless for 
Portland—like so many other frontier towns—to 
build law and order all anew. 

The peace and civilization of the Hudson’s Bay 
Company had dwelt in the territory at the con- 
fluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, 
earlier in the century where Dr. John McLoughlin, 
the “White Eagle,” ruled like an emperor. That 
order was not concerned with the taming of the 
wilderness, so long as the Redskin refrained from 
murdering British subjects and continued to bring 
in the furs with which the streams abounded. 

Hudson’s Bay civilization was succeeded by the 
Methodist missionary civilization at Oregon City. 
This was founded by one Jason Lee, now by way 
of becoming the prize canonized Protestant of 
the Northwest. As occasionally happens to saints 

157 


158 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


without regard to sectarianism, this Lee lost his 
job soon after his conversion effort approached an 
efficiency basis. 

His mission diverted its attention from the sal- 
vage of Indian souls, first to the spiritual needs of 
the incoming trickle of white immigrants; then to 
the grabbing of the fertile lands and water rights 
of the Willamette Valley; and at length to the final 
stripping of Dr. John McLoughlin. 

McLoughlin had flown in the face of Hudson’s 
Bay policy when he saved the missionaries and 
settlers from starvation and massacre by the In- 
dians, had resigned his almost imperial position at 
the head of the Northwestern territory of the com- 
pany’s widespread activities. He had cast his lot 
with the people he had befriended, in the town of 
Oregon City, which he had laid out years before 
and to which he had welcomed the Americans. 

The result of his choice was a cynical spoliation 
at the hands of the missionary leaders and settlers. 
It would have made Auschylus of Eleusis weep 
tears of pure esthetic joy, could the tale have come 
to his hands as material for majestic tragedy. 

The heads of the mission settlement, having 
already possessed themselves of commercial con- 
trol and of the lands of the Indians and of the 
deposed factor of Hudson’s Bay, efficiently took 
possession of the political government as well, and 
F’reedom began slowly broadening down from pre- 
cedent to precedent. As a climax to all this, Port- 
land the Metropolis, Portland the Victorian out- 
post in the Wild West, came to pass. 


A. PiuGrRim’s PROGREssS 159 


It was a synthetic town built on a site predes- 
tined for a great city. The immediate cause of its 
existence was a bar in the Williamette River that 
interfered with F. W. Pettygrove, late of Port- 
land, Maine, in getting freight boats up to Oregon 
City, loaded with goods. So among the cedars on 
the river bank, where William Overton, another 
of The Founders, was splitting shingles for the 
Vancouver market, Pettygrove built his store- 
house and advertised his wares for sale “at the 
Red House in Oregon City and at Portland 12 
miles below.” It was just as convenient as Oregon 
City had been, to the settlers from the Tualatin 
Valley. 

After Pettygrove had the town site properly 
surveyed, a settlement clustered about his store 
under the trees and in less than two years a school 
was opened (1847, if dates are of any interest to 
the reader). In the year following, the First 
Methodist Church was established on ‘Taylor 
street between Second and Third, facing North. 
Thus Portland hit her stride. 

But almost under a different name. A. L. 
Lovejoy flipped a coin with Pettygrove, in a con- 
troversy as to whether the town should be named 
Portland after the latter’s native city, or Boston, 
after Lovejoy’s. 

However, it could not have escaped the flavor 
of New England in its name, regardless of how 
the penny fell. That was in the blood which 
nourished brains that could think of names of no 
other flavor. 


160 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Soon the Portland stride lengthened and be- 
came more pronounced. Came sailing around the 
Horn the Rev. Horace Lyman, of Massachusetts, 
and gathered the strong Congregationalist group 
together and founded a church. The Rev. James 
Croke opened a church at Couch and Fourth 
streets, under the wing of the Catholic organiza- 
tion that had antedated the Methodist invasion of 
Oregon City and which was—and still is—active 
in Indian missionary work. The Baptists, alas, 
gathered themselves together and had a zealous 
congregation by 1854. 

All of this progress went forward normally. 
One of the early Congregational ministers, the 
Rev. P. B. Chamberlain from Maine, set the com- 
munity by the ears, with an attack upon secret 
societies in general and Masons in particular. 
(“There were no Masons in his congregation,” 
says an Eyewitness who still survives, full of years 
and grace, “but some of their wives were.) In 
the controversy that followed, eighty members of 
the church “swarmed” and formed a group which 
they called Presbyterian, while the original con- 
gregation dropped to ten members. Later the in- 
surgent group returned to the fold and a formal 
foundation of a Presbyterian church was not 
made until 1861 a few years later. 

The minister whose sermons had precipitated 
the trouble was dismissed after failing to resign. 
A million square miles of wilderness might roar 
behind her back in glee unsanctified, but the im- 
fant Portland cherished the blessings of religious 


A. Pinerim’s PROGRESS 161 


controversy like a child precociously “called” to 
the ministry. 

Meanwhile, Jewish traders coming up from 
Sacramento and San Francisco laid the founda- 
tions of the great department store systems that 
control the retail life of Portland to-day. More 
incidentally they founded Jewish religious groups 
almost simultaneously with the Christian develop- 
ments. 

So Portland traded and prospered and grew, 
while General Ulysses S. Grant and Phil Sheri- 
dan and others who later made Civil War history, 
then stationed at the Vancouver army post which 
had succeeded the old Hudson Bay’s most west- 
erly seat, did their apprentice work by polishing 
off Indians. Within a few hours’ modern auto- 
mobile ride from Portland, settler volunteers were 
riding their ponies to death and eating them in 
order to have strength to commandeer other 
ponies to ride to death in the task of stamping 
out the last resistance that the Indians opposed 
to conversion by the white man. Eventually the 
Indians were converted—into tragic reservation 
figures, wasting rapidly away under the too sud- 
den change from a nomadic life to the complexi- 
ties of pants, squirrel whiskey and a conviction 
of sin. 

And with each crisis, Portland’s moral stride 
lengthened. From his headquarters in Oregon 
City, 1847, George Abernathy, provisional gov- 
ernor and steward of the Methodist Mission, is- 
sued an encyclical calling attention to the use of 


162 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


liquor on the part of some members of the flock 
and the Washingtonian temperance society was 
founded. 


There came no dash of godless fire to singe out 
the mature Puritan flavor of the Oregon settle- 
ments, in the big transcontinental covered wagon 
immigrations between the late thirties and the 
middle fifties—for Fate sat at the forks of the 
Oregon trail and winnowed the oncoming 
swarms. California, just wrested from Mexico, 
offering the lure, first of adventure and then of 
gold, drew southwesterly from the Oregon trail, 
the young men, the unattached and those whose 
temperament did not fit in with the sober respon- 
sibilities of settling and tilling the soil. 

The family men, the men with instincts for set- 
tlement and development rather than adventure 
and exploitation and those who earnestly felt the 
importance of filling up the land with enough 
American settlers to keep the Oregon country 
from coming under the British flag—these came 
on into Oregon and there blended readily with 
the Puritan civilization that had sailed round the 
Horn in advance and possessed itself of the cream 
of the land. Churches rose almost instantly with 
the planting of each new community and the stern 
New Englanders resumed the doctrinal controver- 
sies that their grandfathers had begun in Massa- 
chusetts. Those grim, eccentric, heroic figures, the 
pioneer “circuit riders” paddled the streams and 
rode the trails carrying their Bibles in their sad- 


A Priierim’s PROGRESS 163 


dle-bags, bearing spiritual comfort to the outlying 
settlers, and diverting their harassed minds from 
the imminent fear of starvation and scalping 
parties, to the imminent dread of the wrath to 
come. 

The circuit riders knew no fear and gave them- 
selves no rest and Oregon prospered and stood 
firm in the faith. Except for minor lapses such 
as the liquor drinking against which Abernathy 
rallied the forces of morality at the outset, Sin 
bulked very small indeed. 

So here we have Portland, morally mature and 
full of grace, shooting church spires toward the 
sky in half a dozen spots long before Vice in any 
of its more flamboyant forms had presumed to 
rear its head. 

Just how little it figured—aside from certain 
gigantic and humanly almost impossible legends 
of venery that have sprung up around the figures 
of some of the earlier political and military heroes 
—is perhaps best illustrated by testimony from 
the same Eyewitness quoted earlier in this article. 

“When did Vice actually make its appearance 
in Portland?” 

The answer was given in perfect gravity: 

“The first billiard table was brought up by boat 
from San Francisco and Jim Fruiht and Donald 
Stewart installed it in a saloon, in 1851.” 

Thus came Satan out of the Babylonish city of 
the South and entered—somewhat handicapped by 
belated arrival—in the titanic struggle for the 


~ Soul of Portland. 


164 Tue TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


It is doubtful if Satan would have bothered to 
make the trip if there had been only the original 
settlers to consider—men of family busied with 
tearing a livelihood out of the soil and forests, and 
under the double inhibition of Puritan background 
and family responsibility to hold them from moral 
misadventure. 

But some of the boys, who had grown up here 
after crossing the plains, went down in the Forty- 
nine gold rush and into the gaudy sophistication 
of San Francisco. ‘They picked up some of the 
sophistication, even when they found no gold, and 
brought back home with them a taste for the 
world, the flesh and the devil. 

Their wickedness, however, did not cause much 
head-shaking among the elders until early in the 
sixties. Then the gold rush swung North into 
Kastern Oregon and into the Coeur d’Alene dis- 
trict in Idaho and the Yankee traders in Portland 
found themselves entertaining a type of customer 
quite different from the harassed, careful and 
frugal settlers. 

Their establishments became the headquarters 
for outfitting the stream of gold seekers pouring 
into Eastern Oregon and Idaho, for Portland in 
those ante-railroad days was the one point of 
contact with the Eastern cities that lay on the 
Pacific Coast nearest the district of the latest 
mining developments. Shipping increased around 
the Horn between Portland, Oregon, and New 
England, and side-wheelers began to thresh back 
and forth between Portland and San Francisco. 


A Prinerim’s PROGRESS 165 


The middle sixties found Portland with a popula- 
tion of some 4,000 souls—half of which was 
transient. 

Now the incoming transient, en route to or from 
the gold fields, had no time to make contacts with 
the fixed population, had he been so inclined. He 
craved fiercer and more stimulating entertainment 
than was offered in the churches or in the meetings 
of the Washingtonian Society—remembering the 
colorful pitfalls of San Francisco. ‘The traders 
of Portland were practical men. They had come 
to Portland with the intention of furnishing the 
people of the West such things as they seemed 
to require. 

“Give the customer what he wants,” was their 
early, simple and eminently practical policy. 

So they set themselves to see that the demands 
for new commodities should be supplied to the 
sweeping, transient population—a population that 
remembered San Francisco and Spain and New 
Orleans and Vienna and London and Pekin and 
countless other places, and that did not remember 
New England. 

There arose saloons that were far more sinful 
than the one-billiard-table establishment of Jim 
Fruiht and Donald Stewart. There were hurdy- 
gurdy houses and dance halls and temples of 
Aphrodite that far overshadowed the simple ef- 
forts at disorderliness that poor old Madame 
Hamilton brought up from San Francisco a de- 
cade before. Satan claimed the transient popula- 
tion for his own. 


39 


166 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


The traders sold supplies to all, and collected 
their rents and prospered. ‘The permanent, Puri- 
tan population sighed as it watched the Baby- 
lonian revelry of the abandoned customers—and 
remained firm in the faith. 

Long since have the outlines of those early 
trader kings who succeeded the dynasty of Hud- 
son’s Bay and who held the whole fabric of this 
dual civilization in their practical efficient hands, 
blurred under the smudging of tradition. Their 
patriarchal care for the spiritual and intellectual 
and moral welfare of the permanent community; 
their ruthless vigor and resourcefulness, the heroic 
gestures with which they made and broke things 
and men in colossal battles for possession of the 
teeming resources of the new land; their virtues 
and their vices; their huge hacking strokes in the 
rough-hewing of a commonwealth after their own 
individualistic ideas and ideals—most of this has 
been faded into colorlessness by writers who wrote 
too mildly, and by tradition mongers who talked 
too gross improbabilities. 

Their figures in history have already become 
wax-work exhibits of long bearded gentlemen, 
with hands thrust in fine nobility in the bosom 
of their Prince Alberts, and a uniform expres- 
sion of high idealism graved upon their respec- 
tive brows. The turfs torn up in their struggles 
with the construction of the new commonwealth 
have healed over, and the third and fourth gen- 
erations have achieved the suavity of manner that 
comes with the habit of aristocracy, after the first 


A Pruerim’s PRoGREsS 167 


primeval barons have finished hacking and hew- 
ing and swashbuckling and laying the broad 
foundations. 

This study, however, is not directly concerned 
with reconstructing the personalities of the late 
H. W. Corbett, William S. Ladd, Josiah Failing, 
John Ainsworth and those other gorgeous old 
individualists who came around the Horn or across 
the plains seventy odd years ago and established 
the dynasties that still rule Portland. They be- 
long in the picture only as a background along 
with the other fundamental elements, against 
which is seen the ‘pageant of evolving frontier 
society, passing in noise and motley and gradually 
losing vividness and picturesqueness and becoming 
—what shall be dealt with in due season. 

There was neither rail nor telegraph connec- 
tion with the East. All that came and went must 
come and go mainly around the Horn and through 
and under the hands of the early traders. These 
by virtue of their position became not only traders, 
but bankers and financiers and promoters, with- 
out whose moral and money support nothing 
might go forward in the new land. ‘Thus the 
early baronies were founded and grew. With 
them grew Portland, filled with the dual qualities 
of sin and sanctity which dwelt and functioned 
side by side, with little or no friction. 

Year after year the theologically controversial 
capitalist found larger and larger markets for 
strictly non-theological goods. In the ’60’s there 
were the miners roaring for hard pleasures. In 


168 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


the ’70’s sprang up the grain trade between Port- 
land and Liverpool—with the inevitable corollary 
of influxes of British capital and its dual contribu- 
tion of staid Scotch and British branch offices here, 
and wandering and wastrel adventurers of the 
“remittance man” type. River traffic grew on the 
Columbia River, almost as in the lively steamboat 
days on the Mississippi. Railways began to throw 
out their organic filaments. 

All these elements brought still more of the 
transient, primitive, constructive type of human 
being that flourishes in lands that are in the newer 
processes of civilizing. The sailors, and the river- 
men, and the construction men were simple and 
direct in their desires, as had been the miners be- 
fore them—and there came to Portland those who 
can cater to the simple and direct desires of 
sailors, and rivermen and construction savages. 

They leased room for their businesses from the 
Founders and possessors, and Portland continued 
to be the trading point of the Northwest in which 
the transient traveler could buy whatever he 
might desire or require. ‘The trader-possessors 
collected their rents, and prospered, building more 
churches and founding schools, guaranteeing for 
their children and their children’s children the cul- 
tural and moral advantages that properly belong 
to children of a community reared in the tradition 
of righteousness and a respect for learning. 

Like Roman matrons of old, the matrons of 
the permanent population wrapped serenely 
around them the toga praetexta. They went un- 


A. PiueRim’s PROGRESS 169 


ruffled about their life, ministering to their fam- 
ilies, meeting their church and social duties, pon- 
dering at one time if it would not be best to organ- 
ize a “New England Society’ to insure the 
preservation of the social lines of the earlier fam- 
ilies against obliteration by the inpouring tide of 
immigration that ran back to Ohio and Pennsy]l- 
vania and Missouri instead of to New England. 

Their contact with the shifting transient trading 
life that swirled parallel to their ordered com- 
munity life, was the slightest. It was not es- 
pecially good form to pay attention to it. 

Now added upon the deep sea sailormen who 
rolled in on the lime juicers, and upon the hard 
drinking, hard playing rivermen and the miners 
and engineers, came the “heathen Chinee,” for 
railroad building was in its earliest boom. With 
high hearts the Western communities saw the rail- 
roads coming, and since most of the effort of white 
men was engaged in land clearing and settlement, 
they viewed without great alarm the importation 
of thousands of coolie gangs from China. China- 
town came into existence in Portland, lying like 
a colorful dragon for half a mile between the shop- 
ping district along First Street and the district in 
which the sailors, and rivermen and gamblers and 
priestesses of Aphrodite moved. 

The trader’s and building owner’s task of sup- 
plying the transient visitor with what the transient 
visitor required in addition to grub, picks and pack 
saddles, made it inevitable that in time the bar- 
tender, the gambling house proprietor, the mas- 


170 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ter of the sailor’s boarding house, the business 
agent of Venus, should become part of the per- 
manent roll of inhabitants of Portland. 

They belonged unquestionably to The Adver- 
sary. But they were responsible about rent and 
taxes, and were practically indispensable in the 
business of purveying to the transient customers 
the social commodities they required. So the 
traders continued to collect their rents and pros- 
per, the permanent camp of Satan quietly in- 
creased in numbers, and the sinners and the sancti- 
fied dwelt in the ineffable peace of non-contact 
(except through the ledgers), with the buffer 
community of Chinatown lying between them. 

The soldiers of the Lord did not lack activity 
nor vigilance in those days, but their method of 
attack simply was different from the method em- 
ployed by the forces of righteousness to-day. The 
heresy of redemption through change of environ- 
ment, had not yet arisen. Satan’s City of 
Destruction was not disturbed. Whosoever was 
naughty enough to prefer it, knew precisely 
where it was and how to get there and the probable 
cost of the round trip. 

The movements that would be classified as 
“Uplift” were reserved mainly for the permanent 
community—with the exception of the forlorn 
forays into the bad lands, under organizations 
such as the Salvation Army. 

Fiven these were not, in those days, as they are 
to-day. : 

Recently Mr. and Mrs. Leslie E. Morningstar 


A. Pinerim’s PROGRESS 171 


brought out a pocket booklet of “Snapshots of 
Portland History’—a most delectable volume— 
in which we find jostling one another on the 
page: 

“April 18, 1874—-Forty-six temperance workers 
arrested for praying and singing on the sidewalk. 

“January 18, 1876—Chief Lappens collects 
quarterly license from 71 saloons, $50 each.” 

Most of the temperance work and its allied 
works in Portland of the early seventies, was de- 
voted to the proper training and pledge signing 
by the youth of the permanent community, and 
business and morality continued to be able to 
thrive comfortably, side by side, with evil. But 
the City of Destruction inevitably grew in its 
permanent population to a stage where it made 
itself felt in politics. In the early seventies, the 
long line of responsible and pew-holding officials 
began to be broken by officials from the side of 
The Adversary. 

Thomas J. Holmes was elected mayor; the 
first time, according to traditionalists, that the 
strength of the Adversary became apparent as a 
dangerous thing to the community. With a mag- 
nificent swipe of pure romantic poetry, tradition 
further says that Holmes died on the night of 
his successful election, following or during cele- 
bration of his victory. 

The history of Portland during the remainder 
of the century is the history of how the City of 
Destruction, the old “North End,” dominated the 
politics of Portland and of Oregon—for the rest 


172 Tuer TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


of the state in those days had just sufficient 
strength to be a likely pawn in the political games 
of the big personalities who wrought in the 
metropolis. 

After the positive entry of the forces of evil 
into the politics of the city, there came a closer 
division of the sheep from the goats, and that dis- 
trict emerged which has since that time been 
know as “The North End,” and designated 
otherwise as “the bad lands” by the gamblers; 
“the Big Eddy” by hobo loggers who circled 
around it in between jobs; and “the vice district” 
by the social workers, who emerged, by the way, 
long after it had in reality ceased to exist as a 
restricted district. 

Its rise and evolution are not without their sar- 
donic features. Business began to press in upon 
the district occupied by the crib houses around 
Yamhill and Taylor streets. It became apparent 
not only from business policy, but also from the 
increasing protests of the Roman matrons against 
the necessity of having to behold vice ungirdled 
and abandoned, as they were walking to and from 
church or prayer-meeting, also near Taylor and 
Yamhill, that the girls must seek another work- 
shop. 

Two practical business men, one of whom has 
since passed to the bosom of his fathers, fore- 
seeing the change, decided to control it so that 
it should not be entirely in vain, from a business 
viewpoint. They leased from one of the Founders, 
the block at Fourth and Flanders—situate more 


A Pinterim’s PROGRESS 178 


nearly in the heart of the sailor boarding house 
and transient district—and erected thereupon 
fully equipped and ready for occupancy a home 
for these wandering sirens. Then they lobbied 
through the city council, by the brief and efficient 
golden method in vogue in those days, the ordi- 
nance that commanded the women of Babylon, in 
the interests of higher morality to depart. 

The girls were ready when the command came 
forth and, picking up their already packed carpet 
bags, migrated. The City of Destruction became 
more compact and consolidated, business occupied 
the ground vacated by the migrating scarlet 
women, the sailors and miners had their girls, the 
eyes of morality were not offended by the vision 
of diademed priestesses of Aphrodite leaning 
upon the cushions at their windows, and all was 
serene. 

Two phrases recur anent those mythical days, 
from the lips of men who lived through them and 
still remember them without prejudice: 

“The men who controlled things in those days 
believed, to paraphrase a later utterance, in 
‘Open-vice, openly arrived at.’” — 

“In those days everybody knew where he be- 
longed and he went there and stayed there.” 

Although there was in those days no lack of 
revivals and campaigns, and prayers and exhorta- 
tions against Babylon from the pulpits in the old 
town, the hosts never did get around to the actual 
point of marching against the citadel of Satan 
in the North End, because of his useful voting 


174 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


power and practical efficiency system of handling 
votes at $2.50 per head. The Adversary was 
permitted to grow and prosper, and to pay his 
rent regularly to the holders of the land on which 
his sinful palaces were reared. 

Most important and most powerful among the 
angels of Lucifer were the proprietors of the 
sailor boarding houses in the seventies and 
eighties. Out of them and their organizations 
control of the other branches of the North End 
life eventually emerged. ‘The most famed and 
efficient of them were known, like Jim Turk, in 
all the seven seas. ‘Two hundred and twenty-five 
pounds of florid-faced, beef-fed Britisher, with a 
voice like a fog horn, a hard fighter and a great 
bluffer, and a man who knew the hearts of sailor- 
men, Jim Turk kinged it in the North End until 
his death. 

In the latter years of his reign rose up yet other 
sailor boarding house men, as shrewd and hard 
fighting and practical, loved by the ship captains 
who shared the split with them, cursed by the 
owners in England, who had to foot the bill for 
stolen crews and ship delays, accepted by the pro- 
fessional sailor men as part of the process of life, 
bogey men for farm hands and small townsmen 
from up-state, and for miners and cowboys who 
found their excursions into the bad lands con- 
siderably cramped by the possibility that they 
might wake up on the other side of the Columbia 
bar with a brown taste in the mouth and a bruise 
on the skull and nothing to do but enter a year’s 


A PiteRim’s PROGRESS 175 


apprenticeship in seafaring under the belaying- 
pin of a British second mate who knew how to 
break men to his will. Shanghaied homesteaders 
sent them cordially to hell from Bergen and 
Singapore, from Cape Town and St. John’s, 
while Enoch Arden widows mourned them and 
others worked their claims. 

Bridget Grant and her husband came around 
from Boston, Massachusetts, and brought another 
phase of New England method to the West, 
when they opened a sailor boarding house in 
Astoria. Grant himself died ere many years, but 
his widow efficiently carried on, and trained a 
brood of tall sons in the business of sailor board- 
ing house management. In time she graduated 
them to achieve success greater even than Turk’s. 

When fully matured, Jack and Pete Grant 
moved to the more central location in Portland 
and extended the business. Astoria at the mouth 
of the river—reputed in those days to be the evil- 
est port in the world, and Portland, the point of 
loading and unloading the cargoes for Liverpool 
and Hamburg, cooperated in the business of 
manipulating crews. It was part of the procedure 
for the sailor-boarding house manager to put a 
guard on board at Portland and send him as far 
as Astoria, to make sure that none of the new 
crew escaped before the ship could get to sea. 

The procedure in sailor’s employment was sim- 
ple. When the ship came into port, the sailors 
either came ashore to seek diversion after their 
six months’ voyage, or were persuaded to leave 


176 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


the ship by a runner from the boarding houses. 
On shore they were either persuaded to desert the 
ship and re-ship on another, or were laid away 
dead drunk pending a call for men from some 
short handed ship that was ready to depart, or a 
fight was started in the boarding house and when 
the police arrived complaints were filed against 
the visiting seamen and they were thrown into 
jail. 

In the latter event the captain of the ship 
would wait as long as necessary and then call 
upon Jim Turk, or the Grant boys or Larry Sul- 
livan or whoever was his employment agent, and 
the number of men needed would be sent out. 
When the boys in jail came out again they were 
ready for such employment as boarding house 
keepers could get them. 

It was no complaint from the regular sailors 
that roused the indignation of the community 
against the sailor boarding houses. Ordinarily the 
sailor was a philosophical person. His idea of life 
was to sail, and go ashore, and drink and riot, 
and sail somewhere else and go ashore and amuse 
himself again. ‘The intricacies of business were 
beyond him. He was glad to have a kindly 
boarding house man attend to the detail of re- 
shipping him when he had wound up his shore 
leave with an empty pocket and a headache and 
was ready for work again. 

What brought disapproval upon the sailor 
boarding house men was the roar of the cowboy 
and miner and farm hand, who came down to 


A Piuerim’s PRoGREss abrirg 


Portland to blow off steam and found himself 
unwittingly turned into a sailor; and the howls 
of the owners in England. 

The Grant boys, and Mysterious Billy Smith, 
and Larry Sullivan and Bunko Kelly, and the 
White boys and those others in the closed cor- 
poration that controlled the boarding house busi- 
ness in Portland, were busy and practical men. 
Some of them (like the Grants) were proud of 
the fact that their passed word was sound as money 
in the bank. They could not be bothered with 
things outside business, like international con- 
troversies, or national or state politics. 

So when James Laidlaw, the British consul, an- 
nounced steps he was about to take to wipe out 
the sailor boarding house evil, the Grant boys 
called at his office and told him, in a matter of 
fact way, that he was upsetting business and that 
they would kill him if he continued to upset it. 
The British consular policy was changed. 

The thing that they could best understand and 
deal with was the office of district attorney, and 
they frankly told those who took the trouble to 
ask that they didn’t care a damn who might be 
governor, or chief of police, or mayor or anything 
else, so long as they knew where the prosecuting 
attorney stood. So they faked a factional division 
and no matter who was elected district attorney, 
there was always one group of boarding house and 
gambling house proprietors, that had supported 
his campaign and made him beholden to them. 

Roars or crusades had little to do with elimi- 


178 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


nating the sailor boarding houses. Changes in 
marine labor legislation, a temporary slump in 
shipping out of the Port of Portland, the dis- 
appearance of the old “lime juicers” and the rise 
of the steam freighters all conspired to bring a new 
order in which the sailor boarding house and its 
master had no place. 

As the importance of sailor employment fell 
off, lumbering increased. The sailor on shore 
leave was replaced by the lumberjack, foot-loose 
with his pay check, asking only a bath, a shave, 
a complete new suit or woolen underwear, and 
from there on—all that the bartenders and ladies 
north of Burnside street might have to offer. 

Gambling houses rose to dominance—but over 
them was the same ring that had controlled the 
sailor boarding houses. ‘Their systemized method 
of controlling and delivering votes made their in- 
fluence much courted by all political forces. The 
story of processionals of visiting sailors and log- 
gers and section hands, voting early and often as 
they were marched about the North End ward, 
receiving $2.50 per vote per head, is one that never 
grows stale in the hearing. The picture of Larry 
Sullivan, or Bunko Kelly, or any of the other of 
Lucifer’s archangels of the day, sitting above the 
ballot box with a sawed-off shotgun across the 
knees and keeping an eye on how the voting was 
done, has been preserved to us in the memory of 
eyewitnesses. 

Long ago the Southern Pacific Railway, which 
came into Portland on the west side and ran the 


A Piuerim’s PrRoGREss 179 


full length of Fourth Street, to the Union Depot 
beyond Hoyt, installed a station downtown. ‘This 
was partly because of convenience to the shopping 
district, but chiefly, so tradition says, because the 
women folk coming to Portland from the Valley 
towns, objected to running the gauntlet of the 
reception committee of ladies of the Bad Lands, 
leaning out of their cushioned windows on either 
side of Fourth Street from the time the train 
passed Stark on until it reached the Union Depot. 

In the height of the wide open days, the rough- 
neck bars and gambling houses, “free-and-easy”’ 
theaters and such diversion polarized around Sec- 
ond or Third Street and Burnside. There the 
lumberjack and miner and sailor and rivermen and 
visiting young experimenters from the rural com- 
munities upstate, and moralists from the small 
towns who came to see how horrible it all was 
and report duly to the congregations back home, 
circulated and amused themselves according to 
their various natures. 

August Erickson’s, with its six hundred foot 
bar (held to be the longest bar in the world), over 
which a man could buy the biggest scuttleful of 
beer in the United States for a nickel, boiled with 
variegated life, and there the laboring man spent 
his money for wine, women and gambling accord- 
ing to his taste. There flourished the famous 
“museum” filled with more or less Rabelaisian ob- 
jects of art and curiosities. Here performed at 
one time the Ladies’ Orchestra, gowned in rose 
pink and chastely seated within a brass railed en- 


180 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


closure, the rails of which were charged with 
enough electricity to stop the most amorous lum- 
berjack who might seek better acquaintance of the 
musicians. 

Fritz’s, Blaziers and a dozen others; bars and 
gambling tables, variety theaters where the girls 
took their turns on the stages and “worked the 
boxes,” startling the visiting yokel with beer at 
a dollar a bottle, which he could buy downstairs 
for about five cents a half gallon; Bob Smith’s 
Monte Carlo, with an orchestra playing in the 
ballyhoo over the street and any game you cared 
to try going inside. With such a catalogue one 
could go on indefinitely for pages. ‘The City of 
Destruction flamed and blared and gamboled 
beyond the barrier North of Washington Street 
and against the buffer community of Chinatown, 
slopping over in spots in the form of the higher 
class gambling establishments and the houses of 
Madame Fanshawe and half a dozen other famous 
madames, whose histories are inextricably inter- 
woven in the droll story of the political plots and 
counterplots of the time. 

The Arlington club, the oldest exclusive club of 
the city, was on West Park Street near Alder, and 
diagonally across from it, enterprising sisters es- 
tablished a shrine to Venus, rather more elaborate 
and ornate than the wayside shrines north of 
Burnside that called the lowly lumberjack and 
the hard-boiled sailor. These two institutions were 
not mutually unaware of one another’s existence, 
and some of the social and political history of 


A Piuerim’s PROGRESS 181 


Portland haunts the ghosts of those buildings that 
have long since given way to skyscrapers. 

In Madame Fanshawe’s on what is now Broad- 
way and Morrison, occupied ironically by an 
exclusive ladies’ furnishings store, the “opium 
plot” developed according to testimony of the 
runner who turned state’s evidence. It was this 
plot that broke Jim Lotan as collector of customs 
and political boss, and his conviction and fine was 
attended by the flight of accomplices to China to 
live out the remainder of their lives. Hundreds 
of thousands of dollars were involved in the ring, 
with Lotan as collector of customs heading the 
Portland end of it, and the smuggling ships toss- 
ing over five tael cans of opium on floats in the 
lower harbor for the Portland gang to pick up. 

Chinatown with ten thousand or more inhabit- 
ants packed into its short stretch and ruled over 
by the high-binders of the day, featured promi- 
nently in the opium conspiracy. Chinatown was 
an unreclaimed pagan community in those days, 
paying its “cumshaw” to the police and bearing 
with oriental stoicism the working out of the white 
man’s doctrine that John Chinaman was fair 
game at any and all times. It was a show place 
for the curious with its endlessly noisy theater, 
its joss house, its Harvest Festival and bonfires 
and banquets and periodical celebrations that car- 
peted the street for miles with red and yellow and 
green firecracker paper. 

Labor in the railway construction, in the salmon 
canneries, in land clearing or what not, was fur- 


182 THe TAMING OF THE E'RONTIER 


nished by the high-binders, who controlled the 
coolies with the hand of death and waxed rich 
off their labors. 

Tong wars still break out in the attenuated 
Chinese community but they are feeble things 
compared to the wars that raged in the eighties. 
When a tong war broke out, the police and the 
whites discreetly got off the street and left the mat- 
ter in the hands of the gods of the heathen Chinee. 
It reached its peak in the late eighties when one 
war broke out among the rival tongs that cul- 
minated in a pitched battle in which the number 
of killed and wounded has never been accurately 
determined. ‘The tong men lay in the picturesque 
bannered balconies overhanging the street and all 
day long the rattle of the old style Henry rifles 
went on, as they enthusiastically picked off China- 
men who showed in the street below, or potted 
one another at long range. 

Because of the firm stand of the men who con- 
trolled Portland, Chinatown escaped the catas- 
trophe that befe]! the oriental quarters in cities 
all along the Coast when the anti-Chinese riots 
were on in the late eighties. The firmness of the 
stand of the Portland leaders was partly due to 
Portland’s conservative attachment to the consti- 
tution and to the idea of sanctity of treaties, it is 
said. But the salmon canning industry furnished 
a certain incentive to diplomatic honor. i 

Millions in Portland capital were tied up in it, 
and it was a job that in those days depended en- 
tirely upon Chinese labor. Few white men could 





COURT HOUSE PARK, PORTLAND, IN THE EIGHTIES 


A Prierim’s PROGRESS 183 


be persuaded to undertake the bloody task of 
hacking up fish all day long. ‘There was no great 
jealousy on the part of white laborers against the 
fish cutters, and the big packers knew that if they 
lost the ‘““Chinks,” the blow to their business would 
be almost irreparable. So Portland’s Chinatown 
continued its colorful existence until the Exclu- 
sion Act stopped its replenishment, and then it 
dwindled to its present day insignificance. 
Parallel with all the merry riot of the North 
End the old ordered community life outside the 
Bad Lands went on. The churches grew and ex- 
tended. Bridges spanned the Willamette River 
and brought into the city the quiet communities 
of the East Side. The railways brought from the 
Kast a God-fearing generation of Middle West- 
erners. The Multnomah Amateur Athletic club 
was organized with the tradition—preposterous in 
those days—of having no bar in its club-house. 
The tradition continues even under prohibition. 
Portland had achieved a working basis under 
which all types and conditions of men and women 
could live satisfactorily with nothing more dis- 
turbing than an occasional murder in the working 
out of the feuds that necessarily developed be- 
tween rival factions of gamblers and minor bosses. 
An itinerant typesetter of the day who called 
himself “Peter the Poet’? and who used to com- 
pose at the case, voiced the satirical attitude of 
Oregon in general toward its fantastic metropolis 
and the probability of its reform, when the Rev. 
Wallace was announced coming to the city on an 


184 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


evangelical mission duly equipped with a whip of 
scorpions and a full quota of vials of wrath. 
Sang “Peter the Poet” 


Down in Portland, Reverend Wallace 
Raised on high his holy chalice, 
Saying: “The Lord shall eat His supper 


in this wicked river town.” 


Peter’s poem is about all the remaining history 
of the crusade of the Rev. Wallace or of others 
like him who came and preached and went their 
ways. 

But evolution was working the change. The 
sailor boarding houses were dwindled, China- 
town was fading under the Exclusion Act. The 
political battles between the Ins and the Outs 
in the rich fields of exploitation, and the vaulting 
ambitions of the political figureheads that they 
reared for banners and _ symbols, ultimately 
destroyed the simple $2.50 per head ballot system. 
Political reformers of a visionary and _ idealistic 
turn of mind were allowed by the bosses to bring 
in the Australian ballot. 

Two things that came on the turn of the cen- 
tury helped to perfect the ruin of the strongholds 
of Lucifer. Up to the early part of the century, 
water boards and dock commissions and various 
other organs functioning in the city, were named 
by fiat of the state legislature. The fight to seize 
and control these noble golden geese was waged 
in the legislature by the process of putting over 
from time to time a new charter, in which the 


A Piuertm’s PROGRESS 185 


boards and commissions and what not, were dis- 
tributed according to the plans and specifications 
of the latest faction in power. Naturally the 
battle concentrated around the North End in 
Portland, with its flexible and purchasable voting 
control, and politics of the state as well as the 
city was in a large measure fought out north 
of Washington street. 

In the same confusion that allowed the initia- 
tive and referendum and other new-fangled de- 
vices to come in, the reform group put over a new 
charter, which wiped out most of the means of 
getting at the spoils via the legislature, and 
Portland city politics fell into a less dominant 
place in the politics of the state. 

The second event was the final crash of the 
Mitchell machine. It came when Roosevelt, in 
characteristic fury over the balking of his Panama 
Canal plans by the games and divertissements of 
the railroad bloc in Congress, started to smoke 
out Oregon’s Senator John Hipple Mitchell, who 
was the most serious handicap to the presidential 
program. In the process of Mitchell’s smoking 
out, William J. Burns and Francis Heney un- 
covered the Oregon Land Frauds, and succeeded 
in smoking out practically everybody of any im- 
portance in Oregon. 

Basically the land frauds amounted to a prac- 
tice, not confined to Oregon, nor to this particular 
time, of staking homesteaders to prove up on gov- 
ernment homestead and timber land, and, having 
gained title, to dispose of their homesteads to the 


186 Tut TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


big timber interests that had swarmed to Oregon 
from the dwindled forests of Michigan. A com- 
paratively small number of the persons involved 
in the universal raid upon the public domain had 
the least notion that they might be engaging in 
something that savored of conspiracy or that 
might be construed as criminal. The indictment 
against Mitchell was largely technical. 

But the whole thing filled Oregon with alarums 
and excursions and the crash of political thrones. 
Heney flamed like a meteor athwart the field. 
Stripling politicians who thus far had been obliged 
to fall into line under machine bosses, fell upon 
the old masters and tore them, and began carving 
out careers for themselves. 

The war to smash the Mitchell Machine was a 
heroic war in which many men had been made and 
broken and the Oregon legislature achieved a 
fame for corruption that gave the world James 
Barton Adams’ poem, so immortal that it is now 
generally attributed to Anonymous, “Bill’s in the 
Legislature—but he didn’t say what for.” 

In the progress of this war, the political re- 
formers, typified by W. S. U’Ren, were allowed 
to bring in the Initiative and Referendum and 
the Direct Primary. The business got out of the 
hands of the anointed bosses and was snapped up 
by the lean and wily pirates of the Democratic 
party who were not supposed to have any rights 
in the state since the Civil War. 

The fabric of the old order was already rent 
and frayed here and there when Portland decided 


A Pixerim’s PROGREsS 187 


to hold the Lewis and Clark Centennial World’s 
Exposition in 1905. The old political Captains 
were jaded with their mighty wars, the strength 
of the old underworld had been drained somewhat 
in the Klondike rush in the late nineties. Upon 
this situation leaped the reformers with the neces- 
sity of cleaning house for the visitors, as a talking 
point. Five of the biggest gambling houses in 
the United States running wide open would not 
be, they felt, the best advertisement in the world 
for exposition visitors. 

So they elected Tom Word sheriff on his pledge 
to close the gambling houses. ‘Tom Word was 
back from Alaska and possessed certain practical 
experience in dealing with hard-boiled persons in 
a hard-boiled way, and a most disconcerting in- 
difference to monetary suggestion, and Tom 
Word possessed a truly Rooseveltian talent for 
staging a first class show. 

“I’m responsible for Multnomah county,” said 
Word, and inasmuch as Portland was in Mult- 
nomah county, he sent word to the Chief of Police 
to clean up the gambling houses. 

He was notified to go to Hell. 

He sent word to the Grant boys, and August 
Erickson on Burnside street, and to the Warwick 
Club—most westerly outpost of Colonel Apple- 
gate of Kentucky, and all the other pool halls and 
gambling houses to close. 

He was told unanimously to go to Hell. 

So he gathered his deputies and moved upon 
the Bad Lands with wagons and axes, after hav- 


188 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ing sent three warnings. Portland rocked with 
excitement. 

George H. Williams, who as a former member 
of Grant’s cabinet and a leading figure in Oregon, 
had been elected to be “Exposition Mayor,” was 
horrified and outraged at Word’s undignified 
methods and at Word’s invasion of the Police 
duties of the city. He resisted with dignity but 
in vain. The axe campaign had captured the 
popular imagination. 

The juries said Word was moving too soon and 
too fast, and turned the gambling house proprietors 
loose. Henry McGinn, who had grown up with 
the soul of Portland, said to Word: 

“You are that strange and peculiar thing, a 
sincere and honest official, I believe. I will go 
down the line with you.” 

McGinn dug up old nuisance laws and prose- 
cuted joyously, while Word and his men smashed 
doors and arrested proprietors and employees and 
hauled crooked wheels and faked tables and other 
paraphernalia up to the courthouse to be ticketed 
as “Eixhibit A, ete.” Finally the gamblers sur- 
rendered and their outfits were returned to them 
on their signing an agreement not to re-open their 
places. The stampede was on to Goldfield, 
Nevada, and they took their establishments to the 
newer and less exacting field and prospered 
there. 

Gambling continued—discreetly under cover— 
the bars were ordered out of the houses in the 
restricted district and the girls were ordered up- 


A Pinerim’s PRoGREsSS 189 


stairs and away from the windows. Portland 
dropped forever between its present and its varie- 
gated past, an asbestos curtain, showing a city of 
roses and homes, low taxes and undeveloped 
suburban acreage, lying like a jewel amid the 
emerald hills (Vid. immigration literature of the 
period) with Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Mt. St. 
Helens, lowly and individual as Fujiyama, brood- 
ing in the background. Portland put on its best 
clothes, told its naughty children to stay in the 
background and keep their noses clean—and wel- 
comed the world to the Lewis and Clark Centen- 
nial Exposition. 

From as far as railway tourist rates extended, 
America east of the Rocky Mountains sent its 
emissaries. ‘They bore back home with them re- 
ports of a land flowing with the milk and honey 
of undeveloped lands, and blest with taxes so low 
as to be almost unbelievably light. 

The rush came on. Cow pastures that had 
lingered forlornly full of buttercups on the fringes 
of the city, began the cellular divisions that pre- 
saged new additions. The home owner of mod- 
erate means increased by thousands and tens of 
thousands. ‘There was talk about the iniquities 
of the paving trust. 

Old Portland sank gurgling under the herded 
and multiplied population of innumerable eastern 
small towns. It was the day of the real estate 
promoter. 

Efficiency and luncheon clubs appeared. Social 
workers began to worry about the environment of 


190 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


the lumberjack and yegg. The bewildered rem- 
nants of the old army of Lucifer, broken and 
leaderless, and deriving no reinforcement from 
the new tide of immigration, dumbly beheld the 
coming of the end. 

Harry Lane, later Senator from Oregon, came 
into the mayorality with reform backing, and with 
a burning and bitter enmity against the folk of 
Babylon, for both the gambling and the red light 
district had struck blows close to his naked heart. 
Another vigorous, eccentric character, he pounced 
upon his enemies as picturesquely and petrifically 
as Word had pounced upon the open gambling. 
The restricted district had never had any legal 
standing in the community, existing only by com- 
mon consent and public policy of its day. So 
it shattered, and the daughters of Aphrodite 
scattered like spilled quicksilver among the hotels, 
apartment houses and rooming houses of the city, 
where they continued their calling under such pre- 
carious and temporary protection as they could 
afford. 

There remained openly still only the saloons, 
feudal adherents of the big brewing interests that 
had grown up with the city and already their hour 
was drawing near. The state at large went dry 
under local option, long before an effective move 
was made on the citadels of Portland, for Oregon 
consisted of many comparatively small towns, in 
which Satan was never allowed much considera- 
tion. Portland was looked upon not only as the 
banker and trader, but as the restricted district 


A PruGRim’s PROGRESS 191 


for the state at large, and so long as there was 
Portland to flee to, substantial citizens of the 
smaller communities—if they were not conscien- 
tiously for prohibition—were, for the most part, 
quite willing to drive the devil out of their own 
door yards. 

The last of the mayors whose type savored at 
all of the old régime was A. G. Rushlight, who 
came into power around 1910—and came in with 
a wholesome fear of what the reform forces and 
the puritan thought of the community might do 
to him and his adherents. 

There was clamor for a new charter on the 
Commission plan instead of the Aldermanic, and 
he sought to forestall it by naming a charter 
revision committee of his own. A citizens’ charter 
committee was formed and while the Mayor’s and 
the citizens’ committees hacked away at the body 
of the old charter, various other charter specialists 
came in with extra suggestions. It became ap- 
parent that a compromise commission charter 
would be voted by the people—and it was very 
apparent that the first commission named under 
such a charter would have to have its skirts en- 
tirely clean of the stain of the old North End. 

Rushlight with forlorn hope appointed a vice 
commission, which deliberated and duly published 
a report viewing with alarm the parlous condition 
of public morals. A full page map, with the street 
lines carefully erased, showed in variegated dots, 
the relative location of apartment houses, hotels, 
rooming houses and what not, in which the daugh- 


192 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ters of Aphrodite had sought sanctuary from the 
besom of Lane. An hour after the report was 
published, draughtsmen in most of the architects’ 
offices around town had reconstructed the streets 
on the map. 

Portland guffawed and gobbled up the reports 
as fast as it could lay hands on them, and rules 
and compasses and dividers had a momentary 
boom on the market. One of the leading concerns 
in the city, having to do with building administra- 
tion and rentals, emerged roaring for the scalp of 
the Mayor and threatening damage suits by the 
score, because the committee report had plastered 
red spots on the majority of apartment houses un- 
der that company’s jurisdiction. 

It was Satan’s fatal fiasco. The commission 
form of government came in and Rushlight was 
hoisted out. Under H. R. Albee as Mayor, came 
in a commission against no member of which the 
god-fearing and law-upholding element of the city 
could protest. The memorable event in Albee’s 
administration having any bearing on this study of 
social evolution, was the enactment of the “Tin- 
plate Ordinance.” This required that the name of 
the owner of any building used as a hotel, rooming 
or lodging house, should be displayed on the build- 
ing on a tin plate of such and such size. It was 
imagined that in some mystic way it would be pos- 
sible to pin the responsibility for lurking sirens 
upon the ultimate consumer of the rental for the 
building. 

With a feeling of chilled horror, old established 


A PiIneRim’s PROGRESS 193 


families and trust companies found what to them 
amounted to The Scarlet Letter, pinned upon the 
bosom of their most remunerative properties, while 
the peasantry smacked its thighs and roared with 
throaty mirth. But the novelty wore off and the 
joke slumbered, and it is doubtful if anyone gives 
more than passing notice to the tin plates on the 
lodging houses, hotels, apartment houses and 
rooming houses—even if they should see the patrol 
wagon drawn up in front of them, while the Police 
carry out a trunk of moonshine or a still or a - 
couple of experimenters in life against whom the 
next flat has complained. 

In the first election under the commission char- 
ter, George L. Baker, a theater man who had fig- 
ured in the city council since the early part of the 
new century, wistfully saw the collapse of all the 
campaigning methods that he had learned in his 
political career thus far. 

Unlike many of his confreres, he was willing to 
learn his lesson and wherever necessary to fall in 
line with the newer tendencies insofar as he could 
understand them. How far he was able to do this 
is perhaps best indicated by the fact that he came 
back into power as Mayor, in the election which 
with a slight reaction against the sincere, churchly 
and somewhat colorless administration of Albee 
returned that gentleman to private life. It was 
this election also that resulted in a realignment of 
the city commission. 

The half century fight for woman suffrage, 
which was long waged almost single-handed by 


194 Tue TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


Abigail Scott Duniway, the sister of Harvey W. 
Scott, flowered at last in victory. 

While the politicians, still groggy from the 
other blows they had received, were trying to find 
out just where they stood and what they might ex- 
pect from the new voting element, state prohibi- 
tion crashed in and demolished the wheezy rem- 
nants of the battered old political machine of the 
North End. 

Then politics went into a gibbering panic, and 
since those fateful years, practical politicians have 
been burning punk sticks before what they refer 
to as “the church element,” and consulting oracles 
and installing dictaphones in a bewildered effort 
to guess what the churches and the Y. M. C. A. 
and the Anti-Saloon League and the League of 
Women Voters demand of them in return for 
continuance in the public service. Mayor Baker 
has done the best guessing thus far, it would seem, 
although one or two who took their training in the 
old school have come unobtrusively back into the 
city hall, without their checked suits. 

One guess is perhaps as good as another. Prob- 
ably the reason Mayor Baker seems to have done 
the best guessing is because he loves to be Mayor 
for the sake of being Mayor, because with all his 
practical political craft he registers sincerity, he 
sincerely loves Portland and believes in Portland 
and desires to make Portland a city of a million 
inhabitants. He might, if permitted to work 
steadily at the job of being Mayor (instead of 
having to hop into his dinted armor at a moment’s 


A PrnerRim’s PROGRESS 195 


notice to defend his political existence almost 
every day), accomplish something of the ingenu- 
ous dream which he appears to cherish. 

But this is not permitted him. His life becomes 
a long series of heroic sallies in defense of his polit- 
ical life. A breathless interval in which he can 
consider the needs and welfare of the city he loves 
to reign over as Mayor—and in dashes a mes- 
senger with news that Birnam Wood is on the 
move again, and the Macduff is jimmying his way 
in at the side window of the city hall, or that Mal- 
colm has just called the young warriors to a coun- 
cil at the City Club, with a view to bringing about 
the delayed supper of which Peter the Poet sang. 
Out sword, up buckler and storm to the battle- 
ments, cursing the witches! 

In his later battling, Mayor Baker has, un- 
wittingly perhaps, pinned his faith almost entirely 
upon the formula that the old Founders found 
so effective and profitable in the beginning of 
things: 

“Give the customer what he says he wants.” 

It seems to be a good formula. 

It has not been many weeks since Mayor Baker 
responded to a toast at a luncheon of the Minis- 
terial Association at the Y. M. C. A. 

He towered ruggedly at the head of the table, 
a giant of a man with a look of profoundest 
earnestness struggling with a look of puzzled 
distress upon his face. 

“You see before you,” he said, “a man who not 
many years ago had very little respect for the so- 


196 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


called ‘better element’ of the city and who felt a 
sort of contempt for them and the things they 
seemed to be trying to do. 

“You see before you to-day, a man who has 
the profoundest respect and admiration for this 
better element. You have said that you want 
Portland to be made a clean, law-abiding, up- 
right community, and I am here to serve you 
with what ability I have.” 

The association applauded roundly. 

Not long after the newspapers announced with 
enthusiasm that Mayor Baker ceremoniously in 
the presence of the assembled ladies of the W. C. 
T. U. had signed the pledge. 

Portland is back on her stride. For years now 
the politics of city and state have been as rich in 
theological implications as those of the physically 
ancestral New England or the spiritually ances- 
tral Palestine of the prophets. Portland of the 
early °50’s scarcely took such issues more seri- 
ously. 

And now, at the behest of the regenerated 
Mayor Baker and of the Portland Ad Club seek- 
ing regeneration yet more concentrated, the Rev. 
Dr. William A. Sunday is scheduled for a revival 
campaign in the fall of 1925. That left hand of 
Portland which did for so long what its right hand 
did not deign to notice officially, is due in its with- 
ered state for amputation and the last public im- 
palement of shame. 

Also,—among his other array of related exhibits, 


A Prierim’s PrRoGREsS 197 


the reverend visitor will enter a Hereford bull at 
the livestock show. 

After all, even in saved Portland, these are the 
1920’s. So even in the stride of sanctity regained 
lingers the faint, irredeemable tempo of jazz. 





KANSAS CITY: 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ART 
By 
Henry J. Haskell 









beri y ah. ele OU Ee i wae 
i. ; iby ht Gis ? ¥ " M why ¥ ft Mt Paty 


LAY ye? 


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han. 


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BETA E tan? So 
eae ori a fil 


KANSAS CITY 


TRUST I am a person of proper sensibilities. 
So it is with a fitting sense of shame and humil- 

ijation that I here record the fact that Kansas City 
of to-day, tamed, domesticated, Kiwanized, Cham- 
ber-of-Commerced, Heart-of-Americaed as it is, 
with the issue of its civilization still in the balance, 
nevertheless to me is more desirable, more inter- 
esting in every way than the bold, bad town that 
outfitted the Santa Fe and Oregon trade, the 
Pikes-Peak-or-Bust rush, and the cow country, 
and that grew maudlin in the House of Lords bar 
when it chanted the lament over the death of its 
hero: 
Jesse James was a lad that killed a-many a man; 
He robbed the Danville train. 


But that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard 
Has laid poor Jesse in his grave. 


It was Robert Ford that dirty little coward, 

I wonder how he does feel. 

For he ate of Jesse’s bread and he slept in Jesse’s bed, 
Then laid poor Jesse in his grave. 


Jesse was a man, a friend to the poor, 

He never would see a man suffer pain; 

And with his brother Frank, he robbed the Chicago bank, 
And stopped the Glendale train. 


I recognize this preference for the modern city 
as a weakness, and I do not boast of it. Perhaps 
201 


202 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


it is due to unfortunate early training. For I dis- 
tinctly recollect that when I arrived in Kansas 
City many years ago I was quite unable to share 
in the enthusiasm of many of the older inhabitants 
for Jesse James, Jr., who was on trial on a charge 
of train robbery. Not that I was prejudiced 
against the son of the unlucky victim of the gen- 
tleman who shot Mr. Howard. He was acquitted. 
But I did not take easily to the fact that many 
reputable citizens were evidently less concerned in 
the evidence of his innocence than in the circum- 
stance that he was the son of the border Robin 
Hood. A chip of the old block, by gad, sir! 

It may be, too, that the town of the early days 
lacked some of the picturesqueness that belongs by 
tradition to a frontier community. It never was 
scalped by Indians, shot up by cow punchers, or 
debauched by prospectors with their pockets full 
of gold nuggets. Joseph Smith and his followers 
settled on its outskirts and might have contrib- 
uted variety to its life. But the settlers rose 
against the Mormons and they sought refuge else- 
where. The river trade offered possibilities. But 
the railroads choked it off. With their develop- 
ment in the ’60’s the frontier rapidly retreated 
westward. It had hardly restrained long enough 
to be seriously lamented. One day it was there. 
Next day Kansas City organized a Chamber of 
Commerce and lined up with the coming indus- 
trial age. It is difficult to yearn backward after 
one’s great-grand-aunt who only lived ten minutes. 

In the ’70’s the city’s only real frontier asset 


Houn’ Dawe vs. Art 203 


was a legacy from border warfare days, the James 
gang. When Governor Crittenden invited politi- 
cal ruin by offering a reward for Jesse with un- 
expectedly successful results, as the ballad of the 
dirty little coward testifies, the community at the 
Kaw’s mouth was definitely turned toward stand- 
ardization. Its traditions were broken. 

The place was never even a typical cow town. 
By the time the big demand for beef cattle came, 
after the war, the railroads were tapping the range 
to the west of the Missouri. The great herds 
from Texas that were driven north over the Chis- 
holm and other trails, reached rail transportation 
first at Abilene, Kansas, and then at Dodge and 
Ogalalla. ‘Those were the centers of cowpuncher 
life. It was at Dodge, not at Kansas City, that 
Boots Hill cemetery was established for the con- 
venient disposal of the gentlemen who died with 
their boots on. The cattle were shipped from those 
railroad points to farmers further east or to the 
stockyards at Kansas City and Chicago. A few 
herdsmen rode the trains with them and gave a 
cow country atmosphere to the hotels, eating 
houses and saloons near the stockyards. But the 
boys with the high heel boots, chaps and spurs, 
were undeniably exotic in Kansas City. They 
were swallowed up in the larger life of the com- 
munity which was busy killing hogs, handling 
wheat, grinding flour, and supplying agricultural 
implements to the grain farmers. 

The city, as I just said, was on the road to a 
standardization of the commonplace commercial 


204 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


type. From that catastrophe it was saved by 
Providence or a fortuitous concourse of atoms. 
Its placid progress was suddenly disturbed by a 
voleanic eruption. A bulky middle-aged man 
from Indiana came storming into town. After 
that it was never the same. 


Two things, I suppose, made Kansas City—the 
Great Bend of the Missouri and Nelson of The 
Star. The Bend requires more explanation than 
Nelson. Its importance is less obvious. The Mis- 
sourl sweeps down from the north past Omaha, 
St. Joe, Atchison, and Leavenworth. At the 
junction with the Kaw, more politely known as 
the Kansas, it turns abruptly to the east and goes 
swirling across the state to meet the Mississippi 
just above St. Louis. 

You see? Probably not. To the present gen- 
eration inland water transportation does not exist. 
But the outfitters for the overland trade, bucking 
the muddy current on the Felix X. Aubrey, the 
Cataract, the Sultan, the Silver Heels, the Star of 
the West, and other famous steamers, sought the 
maximum cheap water haul to the west. Where 
the up-river boats turned north goods were taken 
ashore for the long trek. That meant a trading 
post at the mouth of the Kaw where the overland 
trails whipped out their ribbons toward Oregon 
and Santa Fe. 

So the trading post developed with many vicis- 
situdes into an outfitting point and later a distrib- 
uting center. Until the eruption of 1880 it was 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ArT 205 


distinguished only for its energy and a self confi- 
dence that was its real religion. William Rock- 
hill Nelson, the erupter, was a huge man, short of 
leg but enormous of frame. Julian Street wrote 
of him in his later years that he was more like a 
voleano than any other man he had ever met; 
mountainous in his proportions and also in the way 
he tapered up from his vast waist to his snow 
capped peak, with a Vesuvian voice, hoarse, deep, 
rumbling, strong. ‘When he speaks,” Street 
wrote, “great natural forces seem to stir, and you 
hope no eruption may occur while you are near, 
lest the fire from the mountains descend upon you 
and destroy you.” The eruptions escaped from 
under a long, quivering upper lip and were rein- 
forced by slaps with a heavy hand on the desk. 
They welled up from a temperament that was a 
combination of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Jim 
Hill, with a dash of St. Francis, Nietzsche, and 
Oliver Cromwell. Wherever Fate happened to 
plant Nelson he hoisted his flag and took charge. 
He took charge of the unkempt town where he 
printed his paper. It struggled, but it could not 
escape. 

A late photograph shows him seated with a 
huge hand in the foreground. “That paw is not 
overemphasized,” a stranger remarked, happening 
on the picture after visiting Kansas City. “It is 
all over the place.” | 

Nelson was of British stock. The family had 
been in America since the seventeenth century. 
But for all his Anglo-Saxon aggressiveness he was 


206 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER . 


the embodiment of the Latin civilization which is 
the civilization of beauty. Instinctively he re- 
garded the industrialism of his day with the same 
abhorrence that France feels toward the monstrous 
industrial organization that is Germany. He 
might not have admitted it, but he had the Gallic 
apprehension that this terrible machine would some 
day come rolling down and destroy everything 
that made life worth while. 

“Don’t talk to me about a campaign to bring 
factories to Kansas City,” he exclaimed one day 
to a delegation of town boosters. “A city isn’t 
made by bringing in a horde of cheap laborers to 
make cotton prints. Put on a campaign for an 
art gallery and I’m with you.” 

So for thirty-five years, by sheer strength of a 
dominating will he sought to impose the things of 
the spirit on a chronically dismayed trading com- 
munity which habitually resented but could not 
evade his dictation. Kansas City is not to be un- 
derstood without understanding the long struggle 
between the frontier town of the stockyards, the 
checker board mud streets, and the Boston store, 
and this outsider, who without knowing it, was 
the incarnation of an alien outlook on life. 


Returning to the physical basis of things, I have 
said it was the Great Bend of the Missouri that 
determined that a city should exist at this par- 
ticular point. It was the advance of the ice sheet 
that made the Great Bend. Every spring the 
melting ice poured out flood waters from its 


Houn’ Dawe vs. Art 207 


fringes. ‘These plowed a wide channel from the 
northwest to the south and east in which the 
shrunken Missouri still flows, the mere remnant of 
a once mighty stream. ‘The southwestern ex- 
tremity of the ice sheet covered northeastern 
Kansas. Around the glacier’s giant elbow swept 
the Missouri in its great bend to the east. 
Settlements clustered up and down the river at 
this strategic point. On the North side Kentucky 
settlers organized a county and named it for their 
hero, Clay, with Liberty as its county seat. On 
the south side settlers from Virginia called their 
county for the rival hero, Jackson, and named the 
county seat equally for the rights of man, Inde- 
pendence. Up stream appeared Leavenworth, 
Atchison, St. Joe, Council Bluffs. The river towns 
became competitors for the Santa Fe trade that 
began in the °30’s and the Oregon trade that 
started in the next decade. Early in the century 
French fur traders from St. Louis had established 
a trading post at the mouth of the Kaw. When 
the steamboats began coming up the river with 
goods for Santa Fe they discovered the best land- 
ing place by Chouteau’s warehouse at the foot of 
what is now Main Street, Kansas City. Traders 
found it convenient to route their stuff by Chou- 
teau’s landing and haul it over a trail made by a 
ravine to the main Santa Fe trail at the little 
hamlet of Westport that had sprung up on the 
trail a few miles west of Independence. A set- 
tlement developed at the landing and spread back 
on the plateau behind the river bluffs. There in 


208 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


a tavern adjoining Colonel Titus’s palatial three- 
story gambling house, a meeting was held presided 
over by One-Eyed Ellis, who made his living sell- 
ing bad whiskey to the Indians, and the settlement 
was christened the Town of Kanzas. Later it 
became City of Kansas, and only within a genera- 
tion Kansas City. 

An Eastern newspaper man, Albert D. Rich- 
ardson, visiting the place in 1857 on a journey 
through the West, tells of the steamboat port 
with its “immense piles of freight, horses, ox and 
mule teams receiving merchandise from steamers, 
scores of immigrant wagons and a busy crowd of 
whites, Indians, half-breeds, negroes and Mexi- 
cans. Carts and horses wallowed in the mud. 
Drinking saloons abounded and everything wore 
the accidental, transitory look of new settle- 
ments.” But the people had the characteristic 
spirit of the pioneers which is incarnate today in 
the town booster clubs of the West. 

“There was much stir and vitality,” says 
Richardson, “and the population, numbering two 
thousand, had unbounded, unquestioning faith that 
here was the city of the future.” 

In the inevitable race for commercial supremacy 
Independence, Leavenworth, and St. Joe for a 
time were in the lead. Then Fate loaded the dice 
* and rolled them for the Landing at the Great 
Bend of the Missouri. The railroads discovered 
the water level grades converged at the mouth of 
the Kaw. Take a freight car two hundred miles 
to the northwest, west, or southwest of that 


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Houn’ Dawe vs. ART 209 


strategic point, give it a shove, and it will coast 
down to Kansas City. That fact determined the 
location of the future distributing center. 


Eighteen fifty-seven was the highwatermark 
of the old river port and outfitting post. It is 
recorded that fifteen hundred steamboat landings 
were made that year. Then the border troubles 
and the war swept over the town and left only 
débris. The overland trade, interrupted by raiders, 
was diverted to Fort Leavenworth where the gov- 
ernment garrison offered protection. The City of 
Kansas withered. It was held by Union troops 
through the war, but most of the country about it 
had been settled from the South and was Seces- 
sionist in sympathy. Bands of marauders were 
organized in Missouri to raid Eastern Kansas, and 
other bands of marauding Kansans raided back. 
It was all done in the name of patriotism. To-day 
there are reputable families in Jackson County 
who still have Kansas loot, and a Kansas friend 
tells me that the piano in the old home near 
Lawrence was stolen from a Missouri farm house. 
The newspapers carried almost daily announce- 
ments that Major Long had killed six bush- 
whackers beyond Independence and burned three 
farm houses, and that Captain Liggett had cap- 
tured three Union soldiers outside Kansas City, 
cut off their ears and hung them to a tree. ‘These 
barbarities culminated in Quantrell’s raid on Law- 
rence in 1863 in which one hundred and fifty men 
of the town were killed. The bushwhackers were 


210 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


sheltered by Southern sympathizers among the 
Jackson County farmers. So five days after the 
raid the Union commander at Kansas City, Gen- 
eral Thomas Ewing, retaliated with the locally 
famous Order No. II, under which all the in- 
habitants of Jackson and neighboring counties, 
except those in a few centers, were driven from 
their homes. ‘Those suspected of Southern affilia- 
tion were ordered out of Western Missouri. It 
was this sort of ruthlessness applied by Weyler in 
his reconcentrado orders against the Cuban insur- 
rectionists that aroused America against Spain. 
The effect on an English-speaking population was 
terrific. Its results still linger more than sixty 
years after the event. 

After the war, when the railroads began to 
steam out along the water levels in every direc- 
tion, settlers flocked in and the town came back 
with a rush. But order No. II brooded over it 
and the community was torn in two by bitterness. 
The Northern crowd and the Southern crowd 
each developed its own social life, with separate 
society functions, separate churches, separate 
cemeteries. There are families that still caution 
visitors from New England not to refer to 
“rebels” in the presence of callers. 

As for politics, the results were far reaching. 
The central phalanx of the Unterrified Democracy 
of Kansas City is made up of families with war 
traditions. For them to vote a Republican ticket 
would be to make a covenant with hell. With 
this phalanx the Irish, on their way up from the 


~Houn’ Dawe vs. Art. SIT 


section hand status, made a political alliance. The 
combination was invincible. The Southerners fur- 
nished the party its substantial side, its respecta- 
bility. The Irish were the trench workers who 
saw that plenty of ballots of the right sort got 
in the boxes even when voters were lacking, and 
supplied the bosses. At its best the Southern ele- 
ment in the post-war Kansas City represented a 
fine individualistic culture. At its worst it in- 
jected into the town’s life the houn’ dawg tradi- 
tion. Neither extreme was much concerned with 
public improvements. Neither was possessed of 
that Puritan missionary spirit which wishes to es- 
tablish certain standards for the rest of the com- 
munity. This attitude on the part of the closely 
welded Democratic bloc was to affect the city’s 
development for the next half century. 

In the boom that followed Appomattox, Kansas 
City had one short, sharp struggle with its vigor- 
ous rival, Leavenworth, over the first railroad 
bridge to cross the Missouri. By superior alert- 
ness and energy the town at the Kaw’s mouth 
won. A Burlington connection crossed the river 
into Kansas City. It was the second through line 
from the East. The race between the cities ended 
with Kansas City far ahead. 

The conditions of its settlement and growth 
were reflected in a joyous crudity. There it 
sprawled in the mud, an overgrown village with 
its saloons, dance halls, variety shows, its gorgeous 
accommodations for the transaction of keno, faro, 
chuck-a-luck, roulette, and stud poker, and such 


212 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


other arrangements as the tastes of the times re- 
quired. There it sprawled, growing in size, if not 
in grace, until the year 1880 ushered in a new era. 


Nelson, editor of a small newspaper at Fort 
Wayne, Indiana, surveying the human comedy as 
it unfolded over the continent, decided that Kan- 
sas City offered the best location for the working 
out of his newspaper ideas. He started The Star 
in the Garfield-Hancock presidential campaign. I 
happened to know him fairly well in his later 
years. But I never was really acquainted with 
him. Nobody was. He was always a well of un- 
discovered possibilities. Kiven to himself he must 
have remained a good deal of a mystery. When 
he reached the Kaw’s mouth at the age of thirty- 
nine most of his possibilities were still undevel- 
oped. ‘Temperamentally he did not belong with 
the hell-roaring crowd that was dominant in the 
town. While he occasionally played poker with 
his fellow citizens, those associated with him 
noticed a certain aloofness. He did not quite 
know where he did belong. He was still trying 
to find himself. 

He was the product of the aristocracy of a small 
town. His forebears had taken a hand in public 
affairs. They were of the elect. His grandfather 
Rockhill had been the first man to plant a thou- 
sand acres of corn. His father had sent him from 
Fort Wayne, his birth place, to the discipline of 
that Botany Bay for bad boys of his time, Notre 
Dame. He was too much of a problem for the 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ART 213 


Fathers, and they politely passed him back to his 
parents. He had made money in real estate, he 
had tried planting cotton in the South after the 
war, he had been a contractor, building roads and 
bridges; he had been Tilden’s Indiana manager, 
and then, thirsting to move men in the mass, he 
had tried himself out on a Fort Wayne newspaper 
for a year or two. He came to Kansas City to 
carve out a career, almost at middle age. His 
chief resources were in his head, and in the confi- 
dence of men of means back in Indiana who were 
ready to lend him money. 

When I said he was a combination of Lorenzo 
and several other gentlemen of mark, I was not 
speaking at random. I was trying to suggest 
some of the discordant elements that made him 
what he was. I did not understand the Lorenzo 
side of him until I had been in Florence and had 
seen the sort of splendor that flamed in the soul 
of the greatest of the Medicis, and that he had tried 
to build into the city on the Arno. Nelson had 
the same feeling for beauty and magnificence. 
Like Jim Hill he was a builder with imagina- 
tion. In some moods he had the altruism and 
piety of St. Francis. The beauty of the worship 
of the ritualistic churches appealed to him. In 
other moods he could be completely agnostic, and 
as ruthless and wilful as Nietzsche’s superman. 
One city political campaign he ruined by insisting 
on pounding on a trivial side issue because it hap- 
pened to be one of his whims. Yet for great 
issues that won him he was willing to take any 


214 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


risk. The sudden slamming of a door would make 
the tears start. Yet in the face of danger he was 
absolutely placid. At such times he seemed with- 
out nerves. He cried when he accidentally 
stepped on a canary. But when an influential 
citizen, urging him to abandon a policy that was 
crushing an enemy, suggested it would be wonder- 
ful if he could go to bed thinking not a soul in 
town hated him, “By God,’ he boomed, “I 
couldn’t sleep.” As for the dash of Oliver, I ad- 
mit the imperfection of the analogy. Cromwell 
was a magnificent insurgent who finally triumphed 
and himself became the sign and symbol of author- 
ity. Nelson’s greatest victories, lke the mil- 
leniums he was constantly expecting to come 
marching at his orders, were always just around 
the next corner. He never transcended his in- 
surgency. 

He came to Kansas City from the small town 
atmosphere. He knew he was a rebel against 
authority and tradition. He knew his newspaper 
must be different from any other. He knew that 
ugliness and bad taste were intolerable. He knew 
he was for the under dog, and he sincerely be- 
lieved he was an intense democrat, not realizing 
that the only democracy he could endure was that 
imposed by himself as autocrat. In short he did 
not understand that he was essentially a Latin 
with Anglo-Saxon trimmings. Lincoln was never 
his hero. He could much more readily compre- 
hend Napoleon. It was by no accident that while 
he was abroad he spent most of his time in Paris, 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ART 215 


It was his spiritual home. He liked the French 
and was more comfortable with them than with 
his ancestral English. By temperament and in- 
stinct he belonged to the civilization of beauty. 

That civilization was no part of the heritage of 
the pioneer. The medieval peasant could go out 
from his mud hut and help build Notre Dame of 
Chartres. The American pioneer often lived in a 
sod house, but cathedral building was not in his 
line. As for the town of Nelson’s choice, it was 
very much as C, L. Edson wrote in his Ballad of 
Kansas City: 


The herders and the traders and the sod corn crew, 
They planted ’em a city when the world was new, 
They planted Kansas City and the darn thing grew! 


The bear cat killers and the Dan Boone clan, 
The boys that taught the panther his respect for man— 
They planted Kansas City where the bull trails ran. 


Ships made Carthage, gold made Nome, 
Grain built Babylon, the wars built Rome, 
Hogs made Chicago with their dying squeal, 
Up popped Pittsburgh at the birth of steel; 
Come, Kansas City, make your story brief: 
“Here stands a city built o’ bread and beef.” 


Well, the herders and the traders and the sod 
corn crew, the bear cat killers and the Dan Boone 
clan in many respects are admirable. It would 
have been impossible to conquer the wilderness 
without them. ‘There was a spirit, an élan about 
them that their successors might well cultivate. 
But the city they built was not distinguished for 


216 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


sweetness and light. They had come from the 
country or from small towns. Many of them ex- 
pected to make their pile and move on. They were 
not concerned over such refinements of civilization 
as garbage systems or paved streets. 

One day in the early eighties two Main Street 
merchants were standing on the wooden sidewalk, 
contemplating the sea of mud that was the street. 
One was overheard saying to the other: “You've 
got the worst mud hole of a town here I ever saw. 
Why don’t you pave your street?” “Me pave it?” 
exclaimed the other. “Hell, I don’t care if they 
never pave it. I live in Louisville.” 

A friend tells of a dinner he attended years ago 
at which the leading pioneer merchant was a guest. 
The great man complacently inspected the pic- 
tures on the walls of the living room. Coming to 
the Mona Lisa he stopped and looked it over care- 
fully with hands clasped behind him. “Ah,” he 
observed cheerfully, “the lady has a pleasant 
face.” 

In the present generation when an art commis- 
sion was proposed for the city a leading alderman 
opposed the measure in the council. “I don’t see 
no need of this,” he said. “Art is on the bum in 
Kansas City.” | 

At the time of Nelson’s arrival the outlook was 
not glittering. The city had an adequate district 
of painted ladies. Its most popular theater was 
the Comique variety show, its most pretentious 
restaurant a saloon. Stores and houses were gen- 
erally designed in the dry goods box style of archi- 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ArT 217 


tecture. It was a community of go-getters with 
a houn’ dawg background. The go-getter spirit 
kept it on its toes fighting for railroads, fighting 
for trade. ‘The houn’ dawg tradition left it satis- 
fied to be stuck in the mud. 


Nelson used to say it was sheer selfishness that 
drove him into his never ending campaign to make 
the houn’ dawg town into a modern city. 

“I was going to live here, wasn’t I? Well, if I 
ever expected to get anywhere with my paper 
Kansas City had to be made into a place that 
somebody besides a few dollar swappers would 
want to live in. By God, it was a ground hog 
case.” 

But it was something more than that. He could 
no more help trying to shatter this sorry scheme 
of things in order to re-mold it nearer to the 
heart’s desire than he could help breathing. He 
was Restlessness incarnate. He was forever driven 
by the devils within him—or the angels—to smash 
and build. 

Within the first year of his advent began the 
long struggle to impose his alien civilization on 
the raw trading post. It was a struggle that was 
to last for a generation. A struggle that neither 
he nor Kansas City understood at first. But as it — 
went forward its objects became clearer and the 
struggle fiercer until both combatants were lost in 
the cloud of enveloping dust, and all that came to 
outside observers was the thud, thud of blows, 
given and taken, the heavy breathing of Nelson, 


218 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


and the screams of the angry city as each repeat- 
edly knocked the other down and both returned to 
the attack. It was a lovely fight! 

The new editor had realized that with the devel- 
opment of cheap pulp paper there was a wide and 
unoccupied field in the West for the two-cent 
newspaper. That was the sort he undertook to 
print in Kansas City although he had to import 
kegs of pennies to enable his newsboys to do busi- 
ness. He had an instinct for the sort of human 
stuff the average person likes to read; especially 
the average woman. (“The wife decides what 
paper the family will have. Let the other fellows 
print a paper for the men. I’m going to take care 
of the women.) In his newspaper the news of 
the world capitals was slighted. (“‘I’d like to read 
it, but there are so few of me.”) It devoted itself 
to homely things, including the gossip necessary to 
humankind, and good reprint. (“Plato and Cicero 
and Shakespeare and Macaulay and Huxley wrote 
almost as good stuff as some of our modern maga- 
zine writers, you know. Why not go back occa- 
sionally and dig up some of the things they 
wrote?’ ) 

His own taste recognized a line of decency that 
must not be overstepped. A clergyman became 
involved in a particularly nauseous scandal. The 
news broke in Nelson’s absence from the office. 
The enterprising city editor got out an extra edi- 
tion with all the salacious details. The next morn- 
ing when Nelson came in the editor rushed up to 
him for praise. 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ArT 219 


“What did you think of our extra, Mr. Nelson?” 
inquired the luckless one. 

“I thought it was an infernal outrage that no 
decent newspaper would have printed and that 
only a damned ass would have put out.” 

“Well, well,” exclaimed the gasping editor. “Da 
I understand you don’t want me around here any 
more?” 

“By God, could I make it any plainer?” 

But when the town’s leading merchant became 
involved in an affair that led to a fist fight with an 
enraged husband before a happy crowd at a street 
corner, Nelson ordered the event covered in full. 
Before the paper was out a lawyer stopped at The 
Star office. 

“T have a contract here for a thousand dollars’ 
worth of advertising,” the lawyer said. Hitherto 
the merchant in question had disdained to adver- 
tise in the upstart newspaper. “The advertising 
will begin tomorrow. By the way, you won't 
mention that unfortunate little affair at the corner 
this morning, I suppose?” 

“That thousand dollars looked mighty big to 
me,’ Nelson said, telling of the incident later. 
“But of course I knew that a newspaper that sup- 
presses news commits suicide. So I told him I 
would like the contract, but we were going to print 
the story, and he hinted I was an unpractical per- 
son and went away.” 

So The Star, informal, unconventional, spright- 
ly, refusing to sell its soul in any conspiracy of 
silence, won readers day by day. 


220 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Then it was that the editor, viewing the town 
site with an appraising eye, felt sure enough of his 
position to begin suggesting that certain improve- 
ments must be made. The city was in the mud. 
It must be paved. It had wooden sidewalks. 
They must be made of permanent material. Gar- 
bage was dumped in alleys and vacant lots. It 
must be collected and disposed of. The city was 
in the grasp of a horsecar monopoly. There must 
be cable cars. There were no shaded streets. ‘Trees 
must be planted. ‘There were no public baths. 
They must be built. There was no hall adequate 
for large gatherings. The tight-wads must be 
shaken down and made to build one. There were 
no parks and boulevards—. But here an outraged 
houn’ dawg citizenry balked. Parks and boule- 
vards! 'That was too much. 

Nelson saw he was in for a real fight. He be- 
gan light skirmishing until he should be so well 
established that his enemies could not destroy him. 
In the first year of The Star he mildly suggested 
parks. For a decade he kept talking about their 
desirability. He employed engineers to make 
studies. Then he had a bill drafted empowering 
the city to acquire park land. By the time it had 
got through the legislature the community was 
aroused and the battle was on. The supreme 
court held the new law invalid. Nelson brought 
his heavy artillery into action. ‘The shrieks of the 
wounded resounded from the Missouri bluffs to 
Brush Creek and the dead filled the trenches. A 
charter amendment was drawn to grant the city 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ArT 221 


the necessary authority. It had to be submitted 
to the voters and the issue was in doubt. ‘There 
was a rough-neck Irish police commissioner who 
had fought his way up from the ranks in politics. 
He had a spark in him that recognized a kindred 
spark in the editor of The Star. A few days be- 
fore the election he called at the newspaper office. 

“Colonel,” he inquired (for as Wilham Allen 
White once remarked, Mr. Nelson always was 
coloneliferous), “Colonel, you seem interested in 
that damned charter amendment.” 

“Why not? There isn’t anything more impor- 
tant to Kansas City.” 

“T don’t know as to that. I don’t know much 
about those things. But if you want it, by God, 
we'll put it over for you. Don’t worry.” 

So the People and pure Democracy scored an- 
other triumph through the medium of a benevolent 
autocracy. A recalcitrant and protesting city had 
a foreign park and boulevard system thrust upon 
It. 

Of course I do not intend to imply that this pro- 
gram was put over by one man single handed. He 
rallied to his banner people to whom his ideas ap- 
pealed. But he rode at the head of the proces- 
sion and while he believed in lieutenants and used 
them he did not care particularly for colonels on 
his staff. He could supply all the necessary ideas 
himself and the ideas of others, unless he could 
at once incorporate them into his own scheme, 
were rather a nuisance. 

One resourceful lawyer he particularly liked. 


O92, Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


“Tf you want the city to undertake something that 
isn’t exactly contemplated by the charter and the 
constitution and such foolishness, most lawyers 
spend all their time telling you how it can’t pos- 
sibly be done. Frank always says, “All right, I 
believe we can find a way to do that.’ ” 


With the winning of the park fight Nelson took 
his family to Europe. There he remained for two 
years. While he traveled extensively Paris was 
his headquarters. French he learned to read 
fluently. He entered into the life about him with 
the keenest interest. It made a profound impres- 
sion on him. There he found himself. Thereafter 
he was explicitly a part of the civilization of 
beauty, as the city built on bread and beef was 
to discover to its increasing disturbance. When 
he returned home the opposition newspaper had 
an inspiration. It published what was ostensibly 
an interview with him on his travels, with all his 
answers to the reporter’s questions translated into 
French. 

“Did you enjoy Europe, Colonel?” 

“Mais out, beaucoup. Trés beaucoup.” 

“Is it cold in Paris in the winter?” | 

“Rarement. Il y géle, naturellement, et surtout 
pendant les mois de janvier et février.” 

“What do you think of Bryan?’ 

“C’est un garcon comme il faut.” 

The city editor who conceived this idea was 
nearer right than he knew. Superficially Nelson 
had not changed. He still cherished an almost 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ArT 223 


fanatical adoration of Kansas City. But whether 
he realized it or not—and probably he did not al- 
low himself to realize it—he returned from Europe 
more than ever a spiritual alien to the go-getter 
and houn’ dawg atmosphere that still pervaded 
Main Street, Walnut Street, Grand Avenue and 
the packing centers of the West Bottoms. 

In Europe he had become interested in painting. 
How interested was demonstrated in the final dis- 
position of his estate to which I shall refer later. 
He brought home with him the nucleus of an art 
collection—a large number of excellent copies of 
Old Masters, which he felt would be better than 
the few inferior originals that were available. 
These he gave to the city with the proviso then 
necessary that the collection should be open to the 
public on Sundays as well as other days. 

He had built for himself a home, a delightful 
rambling old English country house of native 
stone, covered with ivy. He acquired a large tract 
of land about it and set out to provide an example 
in town planning. He put winding roads through 
the tract, lined them with stone walls, planted 
rambler roses along the walls, set out trees, and 
used shrubbery in such masses as never had been 
seen west of the Hudson. Houses he built from 
his own design by the score; houses of modest cost 
to demonstrate that a small house need not be 
ugly. The English country side had appealed es- 
pecially to him. His district might have been part 
of an English village. The Baron of Brush Creek, 
the town called him, after a stream that ran 


224 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


through the domain, and people said not inap- 
propriately that he was a feudal lord living among 
his tenantry. 

As his newspaper developed and his power grew 
and his purposes crystalized he became increas- 
ingly autocratic. He was going to make Kansas 
City over or know the reason why. Unluckily for 
his immediate success his social and political in- 
surgency blossomed so that his program for justice 
alienated the wealthy and cultured part of the com- 
munity that was naturally with him in his program 
for beauty. His policies forced a _ go-getter 
houn’ dawg coalition that was vigorous and bitter. 
Besides, people resented being constantly told 
what they ought to do and being driven with a 
club to do it. In his later years Nelson’s pet plans 
were mostly bowled over when the people got a 
chance at them. They might really approve of 
some project for beautification, but they didn’t 
propose to have it choked down their throats. 
Not if they knew it. 

In that era of revolt against what was common- 
ly called Nelsonism, the property owning class, 
with pretty general approval, might have put its 
case against Star dictation in about this fashion: 

Under the malign direction of Nelson The Star 
has kept things constantly stirred up. It has made 
tenants dissatisfied. They never used to complain 
about light and air. Now they won't look at a 
house unless every window opens on a flower gar- 
den with a humming bird in it. The Star won't 
let anybody alone. It insists on regulating the 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ArT 225 


minutest detail of peopie’s lives. Its regulations 
are pernicious and extravagant. Its preaching 
about more parks and boulevards and breathing 
spaces and supervised playgrounds for children, 
and plant Dorothy Perkins roses, and swat the 
fly, and housing reform, and a new charter, and 
art galleries, and keep your lawn trimmed, and 
take a lot of baths, and throw out the bosses, and 
use the river, and cut the weeds on vacant lots, 
and read the Home University Library, and for 
God’s sake don’t build such ugly houses, and make 
the landlord cut a window in the bath room, and 
put goats in Swope Park, and why will mothers 
risk their babies’ lives by bringing them up on 
bottles, and plant your bulbs now, and teach your 
children manners, and what’s the use of lawyers, 
and cultivate a pleasant speaking voice, and build 
a civic center, and put out houses for the birds, 
and walk two miles before breakfast, and why are 
Pullman cars so hot in winter, and go to church, 
and cut out the children’s adenoids, and build traf- 
ficways, and sleep with your windows open, and 
the square deal, and build cyclone-proof houses, 
and smash the saloons, and pooh, pooh, on fac- 
tories that employ women, and reduce street car 
fares, and go look at Old Masters every Sunday, 
and use two by sixes instead of two by fours if 
you want your house to stand up, and move out in 
the suburbs, and tear down the tin bridges and 
build hard surface roads everywhere, and all the 
other things, has increased the cost of living and 


226 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


given people inflated ideas, and pretty nearly 
ruined the town. 

That was about the position of the element that 
was in chronic rebellion against the Nelson dic- 
tatorship of the later years. ‘There was constant 
turmoil. Nelson fumed and fought and Kansas 
City fumed and fought back. But it was at a dis- 
advantage. It couldn’t get away from the editor. 
He went into every house in town twice a day— 
the greatest bargain in good reading, he used to 
boast, to be found anywhere on the globe; thirteen 
papers for ten cents a week; now is the time to 
subscribe! People may be careless readers or hos- 
tile readers. But if they keep on reading day after 
day, year after year, some of the ideas are bound 
to sink in. 

When Nelson died in 1915 after thirty-five years 
of storming at the stupid ugliness of things, he had 
appreciably changed the current of life in Kansas 
City. Without him it might have been simply 
another—well, say, Omaha. 


This sounds a reckless statement. It may 
properly be asked whether after all any one man 
could appreciably affect the life of a whole com- 
munity—whether eventually the current would not 
swing back into the old channel. Is not Kansas 
City essentially the same as the other mid-Western 
Zeniths, with hotels after Statler, stores after Lord 
and ‘Taylor, clubs after Rotary, activities regu- 
lated by the Chamber of Commerce, with a slogan, 
Kansas City Heart of America, which it felt 


Hovun’ Dawe vs. ART 227 


should determine the arrangement of the flowers 
it sent to President Harding’s funeral? In the 
taming process has it not lost the picturesqueness 
of the days of the old overland freighters and be- 
come a commonplace, hustling, uninspired com- 
mercial center like a score of others? 

Fair questions. Still, the characteristics I have 
catalogued are rather superficial. Standardiza- 
tion, I take it, is not in itself necessarily objec- 
tionable. It is objectionable when it is an outward 
symbol of an inward dullness. It is objectionable 
when it means simply a stupidly imitative culture 
with no first hand appreciation of beauty and 
dignity and the finer things of the spirit; when it 
crushes creative ability; when it permits produc- 
tion only on the lower levels of existence. A 
standardized culture that means that Bourges and 
Rouen and Amiens and Rheims and Meaux all 
have cathedrals isn’t so bad; or that Amsterdam 
and Antwerp and Haarlem and the Hague have 
art museums; or that Caen and Rennes and Tou- 
louse and Grenoble have universities. A stand- 
ardization is deadening when it clamps down with 
no feeling for that complete humanization of man 
in society which Matthew Arnold said was civiliza- 
tion. It is possible for real culture to exist even 
in conjunction with bath tubs, telephones and 
motor cars. The crucial thing is whether people 
are experiencing and expressing a well rounded, 
interesting, vigorous life. 

The Nelson influence is still persistent and 
dominant in the physical appearance of the city. 


228 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


His conception of beauty in a residence district, 
as embodied in the development about his own 
home, was caught and carried forward by an un- 
usual man, J. C. Nichols. So for miles beyond 
the property he first laid out are winding roads, 
lined with attractive homes. His interest in traf- 
ficways is perpetuated in a steadily developing 
municipal system. His concern with landscaping 
on the grand scale is reflected in the work in 
progress to provide the city’s entrance at the 
Union Station with a worthy setting and in the 
idea behind the war memorial that rises on the 
hill beyond. His taste and his artistic sense still 
live in the newspaper he established which retains 
the handsome typography he chose, the literary 
flavor he gave it, his ideas of good breeding, and 
which prints on the cover of its Sunday magazine 
a reproduction of a famous painting instead of a 
bathing beauty. Finally his passion to enrich the 
common life, embodied in the art collection he 
founded, came to full expression in his will by 
which eventually his entire estate will pass to the 
public, the income to be used in perpetuity to pro- 
vide paintings, sculptures, and other art works for 
the community. | 

In these respects the life of Kansas City has 
been lastingly affected by Nelson. So far it has 
a flavor of its own. But civilization is many sided. 
In some ways the showing is not so good. If the 
city’s balance sheet were made up it would be 
something like this: 

Industry and material comforts. Great. The 


Hown’ Dawe vs. Art 229 


Chamber of Commerce will be glad to furnish sta- 
tistics on bank clearings, hog receipts, and wheat 
shipments. Home of the one room apartment with 
four room efficiency. A daisy. Roll up one wall, a 
kitchen; pull it down, a living room; clear off the 
library table, a dining room; manipulate a handle, 
a bed room. 

Literature. Little doing in spite of the gallant 
efforts of the Quill Club. Eugene Field wrote 
some of his verse for the old Times and ‘then 
moved on. Alfred Henry Lewis wrote numerous 
Wolfville stories for The Star and then went to 
New York. William Allen White as a youngster 
worked for The Star but retired to Emporia to 
sprout his fame. 

Music. The usual concerts, conservatories, and 
a Danish composer, Carl Busch. Ed Howe once 
said of Atchison that for fifty years every girl in 
town had practiced on the piano until she had 
driven the neighbors crazy, but Atchison had not 
produced a single musician. Broadly speaking his 
remark applies to Kansas City. 

Education. Excellent school plant culminating 
in a junior college. The cultural atmosphere that 
might be furnished by a college of the liberal arts 
is missing. 

Religion. Highly organized on an efficiency 
basis. Largest men’s Bible class in the country, 
with elaborate and detailed machinery for main- 
taining it; a wonder. In theology, overwhelm- 
ingly fundamentalist. Out of more than two hun- 
dred clergymen twelve or fifteen have organized 


230 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


a Modernist Club and meet occasionally—in 
secret. 

Politics. A formal government, usually com- 
monplace or worse; an informal government of a 
few powerful interests. When these interests 
agree in really wanting something they can get it. 
Ordinarily they are not in agreement and the col- 
lective life marks time. A contribution the city 
has made in the field of municipal government is 
the combination of agencies usually independent 
into a comprehensive department of public wel- 
fare, with a municipal farm reformatory for the 
city’s prisoners, a loan agency in competition with 
the loan sharks, and a free legal aid bureau to 
which the victims of minor injustices may appeal. 
This contribution was worked out by two ‘one 
hundred per cent Americans, William Volker, a 
constructive philanthropist born in Germany, and 
Jacob Billikopf, a social worker, born in Russia. 

Architecture. A punk business district, with a 
few distinguished buildings and two or three ex- 
cellent churches. An unusual residential district, 
already referred to, starting with the Nelson 
Rockhill development and widely extended. 
Spanish architecture often used without seeming 
exotic—except where obviously misplaced and ec- 
centric—because of the traditional and the exist- 
ing physical connections with New Mexico. 

Art. Largely for the future, but assured by 
endowment. An art institute has several hundred 
pupils. In addition to the Nelson bequest for the 
purchase of art works Mrs. Nelson left her estate 


Houn’ Dawe vs. ArT 231 


toward an art museum. With other legacies a 
fund of nearly two million dollars is already pro- 
vided for to be used in constructing the necessary 
galleries. When the Nelson endowment is avail- 
able Kansas City will have one of the important 
art foundations of the country. 

If we consider both sides of the ledger there are 
places where the balance goes deeply into the red. 
Undoubtedly Kansas City, like other cities, has de- 
vised a remarkably efficient machine for turning 
out the material basis for civilization, not by the 
yard, but by the mile. In America it is usually 
assumed that when this basis is ready the mechan- 
ism will be readjusted to a spiritual product. But 
the machine has acquired such terrific momentum, 
it has so thoroughly absorbed the energies of the 
entire population, it has created so dazzling an 
ideal of physical comfort measured by money as 
the real end and object of life, that at times it 
seems doubtful whether it ever can be stopped long 
enough to be readjusted. There is a chance that 
it may simply continue to grind out the same 
material comforts to the exclusion of the culture 
and the appreciation of beauty that make the 
comforts worth while. 


So we get back to our original proposition that 
the civilization of the go-getter tempered by 
houn’ dawg is still in combat with the civilization 
of beauty where the elbow of the ice sheet pro- 
truded and the Missouri made its Great Bend to 
the east. Sometimes one gets the upper hand, 


232 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


sometimes the other. ‘The marks of the conflict, 
of the ebb and flow of battle, are everywhere. 
Kansas City has created a fine boulevard sys- 
tem. But it has allowed commercial interests to 
junk long stretches of it with filling stations and 
billboards. It has put up, or the railroads for it, 
a monumental Union Station. There is nothing 
in Kurope to equal it. But it permitted the station 
to stand for years facing a clay bank and it has 
stood by while the station plaza was flanked with 
shacks. It has erected a striking shaft for its war 
memorial on a commanding site. But it has per- 
mitted greedy property owners to crowd about 
with cheap and ugly buildings. It has its miles 
of winding roads with their attractive homes; if 
there are comparable residence districts in Kurope 
I have not seen them. But if culture be given 
Arnold’s broad definition as the capacity for 
criticizing life, these districts as yet have organized 
a cultural society only in spots. It has made elab- 
orate provision for its unfortunate and has fi- 
nanced many hospitals including one for children 
that cares for patients from every part of the Mid- 
dle West. But it has set up a monument for a 
saloon keeper boss and none for the overshadow- 
ing genius who left his great estate to the com- 
munity. Its public libraries have an unusual cir- 
culation of serious books. But its down town or- 
ganizations for their weekly luncheons frown on 
high brow stuff and call for pep talks by live wires. 
The city expresses a practical religion in gen- 
erous contributions to humanitarian movements, 


Houn’ Dawe vs. Art 233 


and humanitarianism is a factor in civilization. 
But a leading clergyman who suggests that one 
may doubt the virgin birth and still be a Chris- 
tian, is frightened by a Fundamentalist outburst 
into pleading the next Sunday that he was mis- 
quoted; and of one hundred and fifty church 
notices printed on a Saturday. in The Star, one 
third are of eccentric sects. It has built some 
stunning viaducts, but has allowed the main en- 
trance to its shopping district to be made a bill- 
board alley. ‘There are stirrings of musical ap- 
preciation in its public schools, of musical compo- 
sition in its conservatories, of painting in the art 
institute. Indeed, it may fairly be said that these 
interests are increasingly vigorous and wide 
spread. But the overwhelming popular desire for 
music over the radio is Jazz and there has been 
no addition to the Nelson collection of paintings. 
A. genuine flair for dramatic production has devel- 
oped in recent years, and some young artists and 
actors are painting their own scenery and putting 
on their own plays. But there has been an even 
greater development of moronic burlesque houses. 

The two civilizations are still contending. As 
William James said of the universe, it feels like 
a real fight. ‘There is no certainty of a favorable 
outcome. The issue is in doubt. The city at the 
Great Bend, realizing its achievements and sens- 
ing its energy, is boundlessly hopeful. So am I. 
There is substantial ground for hope. But at 
times—I wonder. 






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SAN ANTONIO: 


Tur UNSAINTED ANTHONY 
By 
Dora Neill Raymond 


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SAN ANTONIO 


HE wall that guarded San Fernando has 

come to dust. The mission outpost of the 
Spanish Franciscans has expanded into the City 
of San Antonio, advertised by railway folders as 
easy of access. Do not believe them. ‘The City, 
too, has walls. 

There are some who think to enter via train, 
taxi, and registration at a “good hotel.” ‘They do 
not knock at the city gates and there is nothing 
opened unto them. If they pay appropriately 
they may experience in San Antonio the same 
creature comforts that a hundred other cities have 
to offer. They will find, it is probable, a fair 
share of the three-hundred-and-sixty-five sunshiny 
days which, by boast of the Chamber of Com- 
merce, make golfing possible throughout the year. 
They will make dutiful excursions to the Alamo 
and Missions, and depart in the same philistine 
manner in which they came. “San ’Tone,” they 
will call the city they have left. Tourist femina 
will remember it as the place where she solved that 
cross-word puzzle Cousin May Etta had tucked 
into her hand bag. ‘Tourist homo will remember 
it, perhaps, for a pleasant round of golf at the 
municipal links or a successful morning’s fishing 
at Medina Lake. 

237 


238 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


To these good people the city has very definitely 
been “not at home.” The years have brought 
many such strangers to her gates. Worse far, 
she has had to suffer from the permanent resi- 
dence of many of these people, withstand their 
efforts, constant and disconcerting, to make her 
over to their proper liking. ‘They would divest 
her of her mantilla, bob her hair, cap her with a 
cloche, give her gum to chew and a jazz tune to 
chew it by. It is no wonder that the City has be- 
come most adept in the art of withdrawal, that 
she has learned subtlety, is reticent, secretive, more 
prone to brood on memories of the past than smil- 
ingly to extend her hands in welcome to the 
present. 

But let no one mistake her seeming impassivity. 
She is not quiescent. She will not suffer her dig- 
nity and her traditions to be impinged upon. Let 
no one think that she will yield to-day, nor yet to- 
morrow, her gift of magic, her feeling for ro- 
mance. Nor does she mean quite to obliterate that 
strain of gay diablerie to which she owes no small 
part of her fascination. She may don the gar- 
ments of right living and wear them with a fine 
pretence of sober virtue. But that is only because 
she had found the reward of such behavior to be 
vastly agreeable—a revived appreciation, a fresher 
joy in the gipsy tatterdemalia of her vice. 

This much conceded, one need not despair of 
knowing such a city. It is not the hauteur of 
wealth, the dignity of age—most surely not the 
aloofness of virtue—that rings her round as un- 





Tur UNSAINTED ANTHONY 239 


approachable. One has only to know how to play 
as well as to work, how to dream as well as to 
act, and the City will not beckon, it will embrace. 
She had at first merely stifled a yawn, not lifted 
her. eyebrows. Ah, but if you know how to amuse, 
how to appreciate, smiles the City, the matter is 
vastly different. There was an Irishman who 
learned to turn the trick. For half a century one 
Bryan Callaghan held firm the city’s favor. For 
a good part of that time, as mayor, he was a near 
approach to those Wild Geese of Ireland, who 
lorded it in South America and in the Latin cities 
of the Continent. Only a few of what was known 
as the better class of the Americans approved of 
him. It is probable he approved of them even 
less. Certainly he must have had a contempt for 
their misunderstanding of the City. Do but learn 
his method. A word of wooing Spanish, the 
leisure to enjoy, courtly phrase or impudent 
blarney, give these and you may take your pleas- 
ure. Such tales you will hear, such delights you 
will enter into as will mark you, to mutual con- 
tentment, as the City’s own. 

For the City is very like an aged coquette—all 
eager to display her wares so soon as she is sure 
you will appreciate. But always, like this old co- 
quette, she will keep something from you. Swift in 
change, constant in paradox, she will defy even a 
pledged lover’s effort to describe her. Once she was 
visited by a poet whose vision had been clarified by 
the suffering of a slow disease, by skill in music and 
long use of artful words. Even this man failed 


240 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


in his metaphor. “If peculiarities were quills,” 
wrote Sidney Lanier, “San Antonio would be a 
rare porcupine.” ‘This is not apt, for it suggests 
discomfort, aggressiveness and rigorous upright- 
ness. San Antonio, in spite of its heroic history, 
has been in each of its two hundred and ten years 
a city of repose. 

That this has been is due, in part, to its geog- 
raphy. ‘The winding river that gives the City its 
name, gives it, also, its character. Always it ap- 
proaches, withdraws from the City’s heart, says 
farewell, and then returns to say farewell again. 
There must be bridges, and yet more bridges, that 
business may be carried on in the midst of such 
inappropriate dalliance. And the clipped staccato 
sounds of to-day in San Antonio must submit to a 
softening because of the murmurous, languid 
river. ‘Two men meet, give a brisk handshake, 
walk forward, make the air tense for a minute 
with their business jargon. A bridge is to be 
crossed. One points below to the “sea walls” that 
were built soon after Galveston’s disaster. They 
stop to argue over whether or not the embank- — 
ments serve or deride their purpose. A Mexican 
boy swims by with lazy strokes that scarce disturb 
the milky greenness of the water. But the flecks 
of white foam near his sunbronzed body suggest, 
somehow, the wish to go to Degen’s. Perhaps be- 
cause when a thought is close to the surface al- 
most anything will bring it into consciousness. 
The men repair to Degen’s. 

Herr Degen is an aged German with something 


Tue UNsAINnTED ANTHONY 241 


more than the Rhineland’s classic Gemiitlichkeit to 
commend him; to wit, his own recipe for lager 
beer. He has long served those customers whom 
he pleased, at what hours he pleased; and if, to- 
day, he obeys the federal law and serves no one 
at all, he no longer upholds the tradition of San 
Antonio’s individualism. It is a matter that could 
be easily decided by determining the amount of 
sidewalk traffic on the two blocks between his 
home and the old Menger Hotel. The place was 
—is’—not a saloon. ‘There was no bar. The 
beer was served, not in steins, but in long glasses. 
One could walk to the rear and look out upon the 
old man and his assistants at work in the small 
brewery, the brewery whose product won first 
prize at the St. Louis Exposition, to the wonder 
of certain competitors from Milwaukee. 

There was another German, one of the modern 
city’s builders, Father Mahncke, whose palm 
garden, in days gone by, provided like diversion. 
Before six none but men entered, but at night 
they returned, with wives and children, to order 
Kalter Aufschnitt and more beer. For the Ger- 
man custom of family stein rights was early 
adopted by the Americans. But Father 
Mahncke’s greatest usefulness was in developing 
the City’s parks. And none can surely say 
whether he beautified these in order to create a 
proper suburban atmosphere for beer drinking or 
whether he encouraged the granting of concessions 
so that a mild imbibing might intensify the ap- 
preciation of nature’s harmonies. 


242 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


These Germans, who have grown into the 
City’s life, came over, many of them, because of 
political troubles in their own country. The Lib- 
eral exiles of the forties were of finer mettle than 
the utilitarian emigrants that followed. In San 
Antonio, they lost their bitterness and called the 
street on which they built their homes King Wil- 
liam Street, in the belief that the new king might 
rectify those errors committed by his august 
brother. But though they gave the street a royal 
name, they dropped the vons from their own 
names,—Herff, Kalteyer, Gross, Duerler, Ditt- 
mar, Hummel, Meusebach showed their pride 
only in their honesty and obedience to the laws 
of their new government. They built a hall for 
concerts, kept themselves fit by their turnverein— 
retained the good of the old and gained much good 
from the new. ‘Their wives carried on the old 
customs, baked such nut cakes at Christmas as 
they had baked in Germany, had their windows 
washed on the accustomed days, whether or not 
a Texas norther blew or the rains descended in 
torrents. When the Great War came the name 
of the street was changed to Pershing Avenue, 
but the window washing, and cake baking, and 
the kaffee klatsches continued as usual. The street 
is still a pleasant, shady place, with cooling views 
of lawns that slope down to the River. Nothing 
in it chimes with its new name. 

One of these Germans who made himself be- 
loved above all others was Dr. Ferdinand Herff. 
—“The old Doctor,” he came to be called to dis- 


THe UNSAINTED ANTHONY 243 


tinguish him from his son, who followed in 
his footsteps. He did grow to be very old, so 
old that he could answer only a few of the many 
who asked his services. But he never changed 
his fee-—‘‘one dollar”—even though the old figure 
under the grey shawl his wife had wrapped around 
him showed fatigue at a call made when younger 
physicians were sleeping. No wonder that others 
of his profession were angered! The old Doctor 
had more skill than any of them. His patients 
came from other states and the interior of Mexico. 
A. dollar, he would explain, had seemed much 
money in the old days, and seemed so still. He 
was consistently negligent in collecting this “much 
money.” It was his wife who, once in so many 
months, checked up his accounts and sent out his 
bills. In the afternoon one could see them driving 
together in leisurely fashion. His grey plaid 
shawl, her gently Victorian bonnet were pleasant 
parts of the City’s fine mosaic. Someday his let- 
ters will be published. ‘They will prove, not only 
the letters of a pioneer physician, but of a political 
exile who was constantly and intelligently con- 
cerned for the well-being of the Fatherland. 

The City’s annals tell of an earlier doctor, less 
skilled but no less picturesque. ‘This other fol- 
lower of Eisculapius lacked the advantage of ana- 
tomical study in German universities. Once after 
an Indian raid, he showed much jubilation over 
acquiring the body of a very tall Comanche. Next 
day he exhibited its still pink skeleton. The neigh- 
bors were curious as to how he had disposed of 


244 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


those carnal parts that were superfluous. He ex- 
plained that, quite simply, he had thrown them 
into the River. Thereupon half the women in town 
became ill, for the River then supplied the drinking 
water. | 

But even such gory cargo as this could not keep 
the River long in deep disfavor, One cannot but 
think that the doctor must have been right when he 
claimed that the old stream had dutifully performed 
its unaccustomed mission in the night and made it- 
self fresh and clean by breakfast time. It is so 
hospitable to summer houses, to laughing children 
who swing out across its purling waters on their 
grapevine swings, to the pecan trees and the nut- 
ting parties that follow its twisting banks that one 
cannot believe it sinister. 

It is true that, in days less civilized, it was hos- 
pitable also to the deadly water moccasin. Nurses 
still tell stories of what has happened to children 
who ran away to play unguarded near the River. 
There is a very fascinating Elsie-Venner story of 
a girl who was veritably charmed by one of these 
snakes so that she went each day to gaze at it. 
Finally she brought her little brother that he might 
look too. Then the snake grew jealous, struck her 
and she died. 

The Mexicans have many legends of the River, 
for they best understand it. In the hurly-burly of 
to-day it still speaks their soft language, as it has 
ever since Don Domingo Ramon made good 
Spain’s claim against the daring young French 
lordling, St. Denis. It would have been well had 


THE UNSAINTED ANTHONY 245 


Madame Candelaria been made to talk about this 
River. 

Madame Candelaria was so old that it seemed 
time had laid a set of lines upon her face to serve 
the younger women as a pattern for their drawn 
work. People said she must have been one of those 
besieged within the Alamo. Madame Candelaria 
sat in her wrinkles with her ugly pelon dog in her 
lap and did not deny the circumstance. Tourists 
began to come to see her every day. It was sug- 
gested that she charge a fee for their admission. 
This was done, photographs were sold, she evolved 
a story and was well paid for its repetition. The 
pelon dog waxed very fat and vicious, and the 
wrinkles, thankfully, did not diminish. Only the 
oldest inhabitants remained contemptuous of the 
history that was being made before their very eyes. 
But Madame Candelaria could have talked truth- 
fully of the River. 

Then the old tamale vender, with his odorous 
burden,—more pungent for the heat that came up 
through the brazier—he must know the River well. 
When he pauses on his rounds, it is always on some 
bridge or other. And on the bridges, too, stand 
the venders of Mexican candies,—merchants whose 
stock in trade is borne on a tray strapped to the 
neck or heaped upon a little folding table. What 
will you choose, sticky cakes of pecans or brittle, 
thin ones; sugary rolls, pink or white, with nuts as 
filling; long streamers of candy, pink or white, 
also, and very, very sweet, candied bits of pumpkin? 
One has but to observe the way these old men wave 


246 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


their gaudy, ribboned “shoo flys” to know at once 
that they are River’s kin. 

In the hotels, now, one can buy these candies 
carefully wrapped and boxed with high regard for 
cleanliness. But those who passed their childhood 
in San Antonio think the dulces bought in the sun- 
light and dust of the street had finer flavor. Then, 
too, in dealing thus al fresco, there was the fascina- 
tion of getting a pelon. Has ever a hotel given a 
pelon? 'The pelon is the little something extra— 
the lagniappe of New Orleans. The Mexican 
word comes from the old custom of giving the pur- 
chaser something to take home for the baby,—the 
bald-headed one, the pelon. It is true that some 
say the word is a shortening of peloncillo, a bit of 
candy, but the other explanation is the better. It 
affords a valuable commentary on Mexican prac- 
tice in feeding the young. Even the American 
grocers had to observe the custom at one time. 
Children asked quite boldly for pelon and that place 
was taboo that failed to yield it. It is not claimed 
that tamale venders ever paid this tribute, perhaps 
the indulgent Mexicans drew the line at feeding 
tamales. to their babies. Then, too, tamale mer- 
chants do not like to hear this word, pelon. Too 
often they have been accused of sacrificing a black, 
hairless dog or so, the better to plump out the fill- 
ing of their corn husks. 

Perhaps it is because of this omission that the 
number of tamale venders diminishes so steadily 
before the competition of the American managed 
restaurants. These are models of efficiency where 


Tuer UNSAINTED ANTHONY QA4T 


one may be served with an entire dinner in which 
the only course not seasoned with chile is the after 
dinner coffee. Atmosphere, too, is generously in- 
cluded. The walls are hung with Navajo blankets 
and Mexican serapes. ‘There is abundant pottery 
in evidence. Sometimes there is a glimpse on en- 
trance of a wizened crone, half hidden in the shad- 
ows, beating maize into a paste on a stone metate. 
This is for your tortillas. Very good these, when 
served just after the paste has been mixed with 
water and baked on heated iron. But if you try to 
eat them cold, you'll think stone has begotten stone, 
iron, iron and the corn disappeared, somehow, in 
the process. No such delusion ever troubled those 
who dined at Madame Garza’s. There the tortillas 
were of an unexcelled perfection. 

There was a fascination simply in going to Mad- 
ame Garza’s on Dolorosa Street. It was eminently 
respectable. Madame Garza, like Herr Degen, 
was an austere artist who made preparations for a 
limited number and was discriminating in her cli- 
entele. But her restaurant was in her home and 
her home bordered on a district of ill repute. 
Women of respectability never thought of walking 
down its streets alone, for no man wished to be 
seen there. It was only with a brother or a father 
that one went to Madame Garza’s. Then one 
walked with eyes straight ahead, though curiosity 
would have kept them active. It is true that part 
of this district had to be skirted on the way to the 
market, but then not on foot. For in San Antonio 
no one carries a market basket on the arm, as 


248 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


women do in other cities. One could gaze at the 
Laclede. Windows would be open there. It had 
been a favorite hotel for gamblers. Men choose it 
still as a fit place for suicide. Past that, the houses 
grew secretive. The close shut windows, the al- 
most deserted streets, the hidden aspect of it all, 
was disconcerting, made one too restless to think 
in proper fashion of fruits, and vegetables, and 
family menus. 

Close by the market entrance, the Mexican wom- 
en crouched above the cages of little singing birds, 
gay-colored, helpless|s How old these women 
looked! Beneath the shadow of their shawls, 
peaked out to fend away the sun, their mask-like 
faces seemed insensible. And yet a tracery of pas- 
sion’s wrinkles showed they had felt much in van- 
ished youth. They sat with never lifted eyes that 
yet appraised their customers, their neighbors’ 
wares, nay, life itself. They had known all of it, 
its different marts, the worth of its merchandise, 
the worth of the pay, the worth of death at the 
end. 

It is well that, in the scheme of things municipal, 
a plaza is close by and the cool shadows of San 
Fernando’s. The plazas are always optimistically 
verdant, even in winter time. There are many of 
them, and those in the older districts have their 
histories. But now, except for the one that spreads 
its green before the Alamo, they do not suggest 
grim days of war. Even this one can content it- 
self with offering refuge to those who battle in this 
age of industry, with warring only against commer- 


SHILHSIGa AHL NI OINOLNV Nys 








ARIA 41 aw 





Tur UNsAINtTED ANTHONY 249 


cialism. Here there shall be flowers, it says, and 
sunny benches, instead of gainful office buildings. 

At night, in the old days, there was music and the 
soft rustling of women’s dresses, the little moving 
lights of cigars and cigarettes, and laughter under 
the indulgent stars. ‘Travelers of half a century 
ago have written of the bespangled troupe of 
mountebanks who used to parade there, drum and 
trombone going clamorously before, to gain a crowd 
for their evening’s performance. Once the Banda 
Policia of the City of Mexico sealed friendship by 
playing its fine best before the Alamo. 

Never is the plaza gayer than on the twenty- 
first of April, when the city celebrates the victory 
of San Jacinto. The flower-decked cars and car- 
riages divide to circle it in opposite directions and 
a mock battle, with blossoms for weapons, is waged 
before the grey old Alamo. It was a congress- 
man’s wife, they say, who brought the pretty idea 
back from the Riviera. It has taken kindly to 
transplanting. This part of the spring carnival is 
always a success. Given flowers, pretty girls and 
an historic background, it cannot fail to be. Then, 
too, the Government, itself, lends aid. From Fort 
Sam Houston comes the regimental band, trim 
officers, fresh from the Point, complaisant cannon, 
their caissons rustling in an unaccustomed garni- 
ture of flowers. To be sure, Uncle Sam levies trib- 
ute, and to such extent that the City is becoming 
known as the mother-in-law of the Army. Its 
daughters make the sacrifice not unwillingly and 
having linked themselves with the Army seldom 


250 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


leave it,—although they may indulge themselves 
more than once in a change of husbands. San An- 
tonio is a city as honestly proud of her record for 
divorce as of her record for matrimony. She 
boasts, herself, that she has flourished under seven 
flags. 

But carnival time is not the time to be taking 
thought as to which column of statistics one’s ac- 
tions may commit one. It comes when spring has 
made the night air soft and the heat is still but 
gentle. Arches of gay lights fling themselves across 
the streets, like the serpentine streamers of the 
crowds that pass beneath. Music, torchlights, 
Mardi Gras cars—massively grotesque with alle- 
gory, girls who queen it for a night, such a court of 
royalty as most delights democracy, who could be 
serious when the city flashes castanets? At night 
on the plazas, chile-stands spring up, spread with 
red table-cloths, lighted by oil lamps. Old crones, 
their sombre shawls draped gracefully, serve steam- 
ing dishes, each one more highly seasoned than the 
last. Children and pelon dogs play beneath the 
tables. The children one may step on. The dogs 
must be treated with consideration. 

At the Queen’s Ball there will be satin covered 
programmes, orchids and long-stemmed roses from 
St. Louis, French frocks and royal jewels sent 
from Tiffany’s. But the few within, as well as the 
crowd without, keep to the spirit of San Antonio. 
In New York, during the opera season, there are 
many who stand each night on the pavements for 
a glimpse of the exquisite ladies who must pass 


Tuer UNSAINTED ANTHONY 251 


from their limousines to the entrance. No beauty is 
ever cheered, nor expects to be. It is gayer to go to 
the Queen’s Ball. Some years the court arrives in 
carnival cars, a milky way in motion down the wind- 
ing streets. ‘The crowd masses thick about them. 
Torch lights glimmer on upturned faces, pricked 
out, star fashion, in the dusk. ‘Those of the court 
who arrive first cluster at the windows to watch the 
approach of the others. It takes grace and poise 
to descend from a carnival car when all the world 
is looking. One princess of the night, in doing so, 
has left a pleasant memory. Those in the windows 
knew she had refused a Mardi Gras queendom out 
of loyalty to her own city. They called her name 
and cheered when the lumbering car that bore her 
paused and the ladder was placed against its tow- 
ering grotesquerie. The princess stood a moment 
in silhouette against the night, then raised both 
hands to throw a kiss up to the windows. Her cape 
fell from her and, quite spontaneously, a cry of ad- 
miration for her beauty came from those below. 
One man, an uncouth fellow from the Lord knows 
where, reached out his hand to help in her descent. 
With military quickness, an officer from the Post 
pushed him back and held his arms to her. But my 
lady ignored him, slipped her hand into that of the 
unknown cavalier, and descended with as pretty a 
grace as any princess in a fairy tale. This was 
Julia of the House of Armstrong. Her name 
should be recorded. | 

In April, the wild flowers, too, are holding carni- 
val, They are their gayest on Alamo Heights. 


252 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


There is a bravura about these vagrant, fragrant 
denizens of the field that would shock their sisters 
of the north. Bluebonnets, purple verbena, wine 
cups, thistle blooms—thorned alarmingly—sturdy 
nigger toes thrusting themselves above the dainty 
tracery of queen’s lace handkerchief, all clamor pell 
mell for the favors of the sultan sun. And this 
they have done each year since the King of Spain 
set his seal to the deed that placed on Spanish 
maps, the township San Fernando. The wild flow- 
ers know the old boundaries as well as the City’s 
fathers: stone mound at the River’s head, stone 
mound around the live oak tree. More than a hun- 
dred years after the City’s founding, old men were 
summoned to court to tell what other old men had 
told them of the ancient landmarks. The lost deed 
they had seen, and described so well its contents 
that a young Canadian engineer was able to survey 
the township. The Supreme Court of the state sus- 
tained the City against those who had encroached 
on land within its boundaries. Six leagues by these 
old mounds, the Cibolo on the east, the Leon on the 
west, the Jacolitos, and, in between, the helter skel- 
ter lines of Texas wild flowers. To modern think- 
ing, the boundaries were perplexing. But, in those 
days, it would have been daring Providence and 
the Comanches had attempt been made to estab- 
lish metes and bounds more definite. 

Alamo Heights has seen fit, in these later days, 
to incorporate itself. The wild flowers are no 
longer to be picked. There is an Irish mayor, the 
bachelor brother of the Misses O’Grady whose din- 


Tue UNSAINTED ANTHONY 2538 


ners are remembered by all of epicurean palate. 
If one is to remember San Antonio most pleasantly, 
one must dine at the Argyle. Its flavor then will 
linger. Army men and their wives have sung the 
praises of the sisters O’Grady in every part of the 
Union. Kipling’s Judy O’Grady is scarce less 
famous. Had Judy known how to chill a water- 
melon to exactly the right temperature, to plug it 
and fill it with champagne, as they do at the Ar- 
gyle, could she have tossed a cake together with the 
unerring abandon of the O’Gradys, no man would 
have coupled her shining name with that of a mere 
Colonel’s lady. 

Very different from the Argyle, but boasting its 
own peculiar gustatory excellence, was a curious 
little place in the old City Market House across 
from the Library. It was kept by Ernest— 
surname unknown. Bare tables, pewter knives 
and iron stone china ensured the place from 
feminine invasion. The excellence of its steaks and 
certain other dishes made it the noontime rendez- 
vous of all the lawyers who were too fortunately 
busy to return to their families. It was said that 
Ernest had been the head chef of Maximilian. The 
story made it easy to understand the peculiarly sad 
expression of the Mexican Emperor in that por- 
trait showing him just before execution. Eiven to 
a prospective martyr of St. Peter’s faith, Heaven 
could promise no glories such as Ernest’s steaks. 

Another famous dining place was, and happily 
still is, the Menger. It was built before the Civil 
War. It is said that Robert E. Lee knew it ap- 


254 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


preciatively. Certainly a goodly number of lesser 
celebrities have passed its portals, lingered in its 
patio and bought gay boutonnieres from the little 
flower-sellers that haunted it at evening. In the old 
days it was the favorite meeting place for stock- 
men. There was always a line of chairs on the side- 
walks, in front and on the side, tilted at precarious 
angles. ‘The chairs would come down with a bang 
of protest against some yarn of more than usual 
exaggeration, more quietly when adjournment was 
taken to the bar. 

Aleck Sweet, of Texas Siftings, has told the 
story of the effect of the Menger on a cowboy of 
the days when the species was disingenuous. The 
cowboy was told by the clerk that dinner was served 
from twelve to three. He whooped amazement at 
the prospect of such gourmandizing. But at full 
meridian he ambled to his table and did not rise till 
three, when he announced that he “felt sort o’ sat- 
isfied and fixed up for business.” 'This last he found 
no doubt, in equal measure. There were any num- 
ber of places that offered opportunities for the con- 
tracting of such business as cowboys came to town 
for. In San Antonio, virtue has never raged su- 
preme. There was on Military Plaza and West 
Commerce Street, the Silver King, a gambling 
house conducted most courteously by Arthur Ware. 
Mr. Ware was a gentleman who had hospitable con- 
cern for the safety and well-being of his customers. 
In 1896, Harry Bennett, a noted gambler, was 
killed on the stairs by Bob Marks. An instant 
later, Mr. Ware administered capital punishment 


Tur UNsAINTED ANTHONY 255 


on Bob Marks. Nothing less than the state law of 
1905, making it a felony to conduct a gambling 
house and providing for injunction proceedings, 
could have put such a place out of business. 

On Main Plaza, flaunting itself before the Court 
House, was the Crystal. It had three proprietors, 
Billy Sims, Sam Berliner and Will Ford. It was 
this Billy Sims who was tried for the killing of 
Ben Thompson of Austin and of King Fisher. The 
two unfortunates were at the exact location where 
the Spanish fathers first pitched camp. They were 
not there for historical research but to observe from 
their box the sprightly performance on the stage of 
Jack Harris’s Variety Theatre. 'The homicide 
seems to have been planned with the nicety of a 
political assassination. Certainly there was con- 
certed action and the shots were fired by more than 
one. Everyone was satisfied with the result, in- 
cluding the prompt acquittal of Billy Sims. It 
seemed fair enough,—Ben Thompson had had his 
innings in the place. He had killed Jack Harris 
there with a double barreled shot gun. Sims was a 
quiet, well-dressed man with manners that would 
have been a credit to the gentlemen gamblers of 
Bret Harte. 

Most desperadoes, strangely enough, are reported 
as answering to the conventional description of a 
house dog—‘gentle, fond of children.” Aleck 
Sweet used to tell a story of how one of his sons 
was nearly killed by the misdirected kindness of 
Ben Thompson. Thompson. at one time was Chief 
of Police of Austin and his little daughter became 


256 Tor TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


a friend of Mr. Sweet’s son. One day she asked 
him to “stay to dinner.” Hestayed. Ben Thomp- 
son sat at the head of the table and when the little 
boy’s plate was empty would fix his eye on him and 
say, “Have some more steak, sonny. Have 
some gravy and hot biscuit.” That night a very 
sick little boy moaned that Ben Thompson had 
made him eat, and eat until he was ready to cry. 
Next day the too hospitable host met the father 
and mildly berated him for neglecting sufficiently 
to feed his offspring. 

Before the days of Ben Thompson’s fame, an old 
gambling house on South Flores Street had already 
added a quota to the picturesque wickedness of San 
Antonio. This was The Black Elephant, resort of 
stockmen, buffalo hunters and the old trail men. 
It got its name from a big slate colored elephant, 
painted on one of the outside walls. Here Melvin 
Ferrar gambled. He could afford the pastime. 
West of the Pecos his cattle roamed over a ranch 
of ten million acres. He set his stakes at some- 
where west of the North Star. 

Of equal age was The Buckhorn Saloon, which 
later degenerated into a sort of museum of horns, 
hides and snakeskins. It was here that there oc- 
curred the tragedy of the parrot. From 1850 on, 
the Butterworth Stage Road stretched its sandy, 
sinuous way for two thousand miles from San 
Francisco to the Buckhorn. Up to this time, re- 
ligious processions in the town were very common. 
The last sacrament was borne through the streets 
to the dying, while surpliced priests attended it 


Tuer UnNsAINTED ANTHONY 257 


with pious chanting. “Ora pro nobis,” they intoned. 
And the parrot swung in his hoop and intoned, 
“Ora pro nobis,” also. After the bird took up its 
residence at the Buckhorn, it used to send its pray- 
ers after the departing stage coach. In view of the 
frequent Indian scalping parties, they were appro- 
priate. j 

The parrot was kept because the saloon keeper 
thought the “ora pro nobis” had a salutary influ- 
ence on the keno and poker games. Men felt that 
they were in the shadow of the sanctuary, if not of 
death itself. Honesty seemed the better policy. 
Later, the bird became corrupted and mixed foul 
oaths with its churchly chanting. 'Then he was 
shot by a gentle desperado, who could not sanction 
sacrilege. 

Just where sacrilege begins, of course, is a very 
fine point on which one cannot expect Methodists, 
mystics and desperadoes to be in full agreement. 
The Roman Catholics, alone of Christians, are cap- 
able of mixing the affairs of God and man with 
profit and satisfaction. ‘Take the matter of nam- 
ing the River. The Indians called it Chem-quem- 
ka-ko, “Old-man-coming-home-from-the-lodge,”’ be- 
cause it meanders seven miles between its springs 
and the City, whereas a sober river could get over 
the ground in about three. The Spaniards mistook 
this descriptive name for that of some tribal god, 
so they piously renamed the stream in honor of St. 
Anthony. ‘Thereupon the natives, believing their 
new friends had translated the name as best they 
could, concluded Saint Anthony to be a very jovial 


258 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


saint. They accepted him, forthwith into their cal- 
endar. Very willingly, the Spaniards preserved the 
illusion and St. Anthony took his place in strange 
disguise above the altar of the old Cathedral. He 
appeared in this early mural, astride a mustang 
and in the war paint of a bold Comanche,—halo 
floating above and a buffalo scuttling before to es- 
cape his winging arrow. It came to be the custom 
for the Spaniards and their converts to do honor 
to the Saint’s day by riding through the streets at 
full tilt, in pious emulation of the metamorphosed 
Paduan. 

One can imagine that Captain Jack Hays was 
most contemptuous of the new St. Anthony and his 
halo. Captain Hays was one of those Indian fight- 
ers whose intimate knowledge of the different tribes 
led him to believe the only good Indian was a dead 
one. In command of the Rangers, stationed in the 
City before the Civil War, he much deprecated add- 
ing to the deviltry of the place any such celebra- 
tions as the Hispano-Indian saint evoked on his 
name day. Not, of course, that the Rangers were 
not sociable and fond, themselves, of celebrations. 
When the Indians came in with deer and buffalo 
hides to buy a big time, they were not disturbed in 
their purchase unless their exuberance became un- 
duly dangerous. Then the party was quickly elim- 
inated from the landscape. 

The City, whenever possible, has encouraged so- 
ciability. That is why retired stockmen and army 
officers make the place the home of their old age. 
That is why it is a favorite refuge for the political 


Tur UnsAIntep ANTHONY 259 


exiles of neighboring Mexico. The City has a hos- 
pitable come-hither-air for those who seek it out for 
purposes not utilitarian. She offers, if you wish it, 
“a free and lazy, loloppy sort of life,”’ and tolerant 
indifference of conspiracy. But for those who come 
as the missionaries of commercial uplift, she has no 
welcome. They may go to Dallas and assist in the 
erection of a city on the 1930 model. Losoya, Sole- 
dad, Navarro, Flores, Dolorosa, these are not 
proper street names for the addresses of skyscrap- 
ers. They were bequeathed to the city by the Span- 
ish families who came from the Canaries. The Ver- 
amendi House, the old Twohig place, the Ursuline 
Convent, plead that their philosophy of life may 
still be cherished. 

A very modern department store advertises it- 
self as in the heart of San Antonio. Prospective 
grooms from Mexico come there, appropriately, to 
buy the trousseaus for their fiancées. Perhaps, geo- 
graphically, it is in the City’s centre. But the true 
heart of San Antonio is the Alamo, fronted by a 
quiet plaza and flanked by the drowsy, comfortable 
Menger. Some slight attempt, it is true, has been 
made to introduce business even into the citadel. 
There is a counter at the entrance where post cards 
and pamphlets can be bought. But sales are made 
most unobtrusively. The shades of the men who 
gave their lives there—men of sword, and bowie 
knife and gun, knew much of the starry heavens 
and the prairies, but nothing at all of ledgers. 

Even the most modern of the City’s merchants 
has had to bow to the local tolerance of beggary. 


260 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


The only concession made is that, whereas the pro- 
fession of the unprofessional was once exercised at 
all times, it is now arranged that beggars, once a 
week, shall come for their dole direct to the busi- 
ness office, without molesting customers. This in- 
vasion of efficiency is a great handicap on the beg- 
gars. It robs them of all chance of developing 
technique. The artist in individualism now makes 
his living otherwise. 

There was Philip, or Felipe, who regularly car- 
ried on negotiations with the best business houses 
in San Antonio, and with no more expense to him- 
self than begging would involve. His stock was a 
bundle of yellowed papers. ‘These he wrapped 
carefully and delivered at stated intervals to regu- 
lar customers. May St. Peter note that he was 
never turned off empty handed. He worked from 
dawn to dusk, did no one harm, and his activities 
were quite as serviceable as those of many other 
citizens. Another odd character, a former slave, 
whose exquisite manners must have mirrored those 
of his master, evolved a costume of such mingled 
pathos and absurdity, that money was freely given 
him out of pity and as payment for amusement. 
His old black broad-cloth suit was extended to out- 
landish size by wires and paper padding, and yet 
worn with such unapproachable dignity that even 
children feared to laugh at him. 

The City understands these gentle zanies. It 
understood, too, young Sam Maverick. Son of the 
Sam Maverick who was one of San Antonio’s early 
heroes, he undertook to guide the destiny of the 


Tur UNSAINTED ANTHONY 261 


Maverick Bank. Its failure hurt a very goodly 
number of the population. No one questioned the 
unfortunate president’s honesty, no one censured 
him. He gave everything that he had in atonement 
for his ignorance of business. Men seldom speak 
of his misfortune. They praise him as one of the 
bravest of the Terry Rangers and one of the or- 
ganizers of the famous Belknap Rifles, the City’s 
own. This crack squad, for fifteen or twenty years, 
was more the favorite with the fair than any com- 
pany at the Post. 

Recently there died in San Antonio, a New Eng- 
lander who long had made his home there and had 
increased his wealth to large proportions. He has 
left his estate to be used as a retreat for “elderly 
women of culture without means,’—a bequest in 
itself a gentle recognition of the City’s influence. 
Men say of him now that “while in a sense a 
foreigner and never quite naturalized, he was high 
grade.” 

There was a time, a horrible time to remember, 
when the City became commercialized. That was 
when the Government plopped down upon it one 
of the largest of the wartime concentration camps. 
San Antonio never will quite forgive this, nor, per- 
haps, will the men who were sent there. It brought 
to the surface in malignant form all of the evil ten- 
dencies that peace had kept in dark abeyance. 

The old Post had seemed no more than a suburb 
of the City itself. Its clock tower, its trim parade 
grounds, the shady lawns and hospitable homes of 
the officers did not suggest the shameless waste and 


262 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


hurry, the mechanic thoroughness and devastation 
that is war. 

Within the City, closely nestled on the River, is 
the Arsenal. It is doubtful whether the children 
who were its neighbors knew just what an arsenal 
was for. It seemed so innocently pleasant a part of 
the landscape. There was a mound or two of can- 
non balls on the lawn, with some old fashioned can- 
non. ‘They seemed as void of harm as the weapons 
that visitors stared at in the Alamo. 

The officers had pleasant wives, were in search of 
maids for wives, or frankly ready for flirtation. 
The children from the Upper and Lower Post rat- 
tled to school each morning in the Government am- 
bulance. The Army seemed an aggregate of more 
or less happy families who had elected to spend 
their time in San Antonio. A new Post was being 
built that promised to become as pleasant as the 
old ones. 

In 1898, the City had known, for a time, a khaki 
army. There had been excitement over the barbari- 
ties that Spain was practicing on Cuba. ‘This, the 
City understood. Spanish cruelty was, perhaps, 
like that of Santa Anna’s men. “Remember the 
Maine,” she adjudged as similar to, but not quite 
so inciting, as the older cry of “Remember the 
Alamo.” She watched her men enlist with appro- 
priate enthusiasm. On the grounds where every 
year an International Fair was held (international 
because Mexico joined hands across the border), a 
heartily energetic gentleman from New York was 
organizing the Rough Riders. It was a little diffi- 


Tuer UNSAINTED ANTHONY 263 


cult to become accustomed to a Rough Rider who 
wore eye-glasses. None of the bowlegged cow 
punchers, who before had helped to make the City’s 
history had ridden thus accoutred. But the gen- 
tleman showed himself no tenderfoot. He was 
granted a choice assortment of her sons. Also 
Captain McAdoo let down the bars of admission to 
the Belknap Rifles. The personality of Judge 
Robert B. Green was such that the recruits he 
gathered for his former company were impressed 
with the honor of their new connection. Other 
companies were formed. Some of the men were 
sent to Cuba and brought back glory, and some 
were only sent to Florida and a diet of embalmed 
beef. But the affair was shortly over. War time 
titles were dropped. Captain McAdoo returned, 
but died soon after,—one of those victims of war to 
whom it is not granted to die in battle. The rough 
riding gentleman from New York continued to 
cavort spectacularly, and sometimes to good pur- 
pose, but only athwart the field of politics. Fort 
Sam Houston dreamed and danced, paraded, 
flirted. 

In April of 1917, it was jolted into more martial 
action. The City that, long ago, had been chosen 
as the base for the frontier army at El Paso was 
selected as a base for the gathering and training 
of men to be sent overseas. Row upon row of ugly 
frame buildings sprang up. Men poured into them 
from the east, south, north and west. And the sins 
of the City went out to welcome them. Some wives 
came, worried and unhappy, or else feverishly gay. 


264 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


But in the training camps there could be no place 
for women. Men were made into officers on the 
field. Lieutenants, captains, were college men, who 
a few months before knew less of drill than foot- 
ball or fraternity affairs. On Saturday night, the 
privates swarmed into the City. No force of State 
Rangers could have kept them in order, had they 
shown themselves unruly. But for the most part, 
they were pitifully obedient, ready to do as they 
were ordered, ready to believe as they were ordered, 
willing to die when that was ordered. Professors 
of history, patriotically deputed by the State Uni- 
versity, came to teach them quite all that they 
should know. 

The ladies of the City sent their cars to give the 
sick men outings. Privates were invited into homes 
that now they cannot enter,—and, perhaps, would 
not wish to. They were danced with and féted in a 
gorgeous orgy of democracy. Close to the Alamo, 
a fine old home was turned into a place of amuse- 
ment by the indefatigable “Y.” Matches were 
made, marriages hastened to ensure a proper quota 
for the generation that was to enjoy a world safe 
for democracy. Among the citizens there were end- 
less drives,—drives for money, drives for men. 
Merchants gave freely. They could well afford to. 
Their sales had doubled. All too often, their prices 
doubled also. No male clerk was safe from inquiry 
as to why he was not in uniform. Everyone must 
go. Their positions would be held open for their 
return. “Minute Men” spoke on the Liberty Loans 
at the theatres. Canada’s slogan was thrown out 


THe UNSAINTED ANTHONY 265 


for the City’s emulation. “Give until it hurts. 
Then keep on giving.” 

Canny business men learned that they could make 
a tidy bit by using the swill from the camps to 
fatten porkers. On the streets they joked each 
other on the profits of their “hog ranches.” And 
the women sewed and made bandages or showed 
patriotic fervor by the multiplicity and democracy 
of their wartime entertainments. But the dress of 
the Red Cross no more means purity than an eve- 
ning gown may mean abandon. War, when it 
brings suffering, perhaps may purify but the prep- 
aration for war gives, surely, the same heightened 
opportunity for evil that it does for good. If the 
worst gossip of the city proved as nimble with her 
fingers as her tongue, her piles of bandages won 
her forgiveness. 

Only one form of criticism was taboo. Of the 
war, of the Army, of the Government, nothing but 
good should be said. When the son of one of the 
leading lawyers of the City lost control of his 
plane and crashed to his death, there were hushed 
whispers that through some oversight, some loss of 
medical certificates, he had been inoculated three 
times instead of once, that he had been in no condi- 
tion to go up. The Government named one of the 
flying fields for him. ‘The City became pleasantly 
proud of her young hero. Only a few remained 
curious as to the manner of his death. Their curi- 
osity, of course, was out of season. Nor was it 
patriotic to question the expediency of some of the 
entertainments countenanced by the officers, to in- 


266 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


quire as to the prevalence of certain diseases, the 
causes of epidemics. San Antonio, cosmopolitan, 
leisurely, picturesquely wicked San Antonio, had 
become one hundred per cent American. ‘The 
United States Army had tilted an infantry hat at 
rakish angle on the City’s head, and called her, be- 
tween a hiccough and a shout, “San ’Tone.” She 
deserved it. 

How far away seemed then the Mission days, 
how impotent the River! And yet it was these 
ruined Missions, this murmurous River, things in- 
animate, that kept secure the spirit of their being,— 
waited until there would again be time to soothe 
and to engender dreams. Swift and smooth shin- 
ing, the stream meandered on, as in the old days 
when it charmed the poet, Lanier. There were, as 
then, vistas of sweet lawns to be seen from the 
bridges, willows bending low to lave their branches, 
trailing Spanish moss to touch its surface. The 
River still combed the sea green tresses of the wan- 
dering water grass. Its muted lisping still floated 
up among the noise of traffic, like some dove voiced 
Spanish nun, praying heaven’s mitigation of all 
battles of trade or arms. And in the early twilight, 
dreams still came whispering adown the current 
among the willow sprays. 

Year after year, the Mexicans have performed 
Los Pastores on the Fiesta de Santos Reyes. The 
old miracle play was enacted at Christmas time, as 
always. Its lesson,—a glorification of creation; its 
blessing of peace on earth to men of good will, after 
so many repetitions, unlearned and unappreciated. 


Tur UNSAINTED ANTHONY 267 


Without the City’s boundaries, past disused ace- 
quias, rising above the low mesquite, the twin tow- 
ers of Concepcion, the exquisite window of San 
José, Missions Espada and San Juan, still offered 
the sermons of their crumbling stones. Soldier, 
priest, artist, patient Indian convert, whose work 
will best endure? All of them are the City’s fa- 
thers,—men of the frontier, leaving old worlds, old 
ideas, to master those that promise better things, 
and trailing still, as fetters, the faults and obses- 
sions that have made a heavy past. 

As it was with them, so it is with the City’s chil- 
dren. Something of the spirit of the old place has 
entered into them, penetrated to the marrow, or, as 
the Spaniards better phrase it, ‘hasta sus entraitas,” 
and must remain till death disintegrates their carnal 
being. How far can they go forward? What goal 
can the City reach? “Pues, quién sabe?” murmurs 
the old River. “The way is not always forward. 
It is well to go slowly. Life is good.” 





LOS ANGELES: 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 
By 
Paul Jordan-Smith 


‘You cannot speak to us, 
O George Washington, 
But you can speak to God: 
Tell Him to make us good American citizens.” 


(Inscription on the wing of a great bronze American eagle in 
the foyer of Grauman’s Metropolitan Theatre, illustrating the un- 
conquerable faith of the modern Angeleno.) 





LOS ANGELES 
HE Pueblo del Rio de Nuestra Sefiora La 


Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, known 
to winter pilgrims as Los Angeles, and to the local 
inhabitants as Los, is, in reality, less a city of 
angels than a paradise of realtors and a refuge for 
the rheumatic. It bears, however, a much worse 
name, in the literary journals of this country, than 
it deserves. San Francisco, its bitter rival, receives 
to this day the polite huzzas of the elect, who are 
yet misled by a fiction. For the New Yorker, read- 
ing his history of American letters, is convinced 
that the northern city is still the Bohemian, pagan, 
intellectual metropolis of the far West. He is ap- 
parently unaware that the earthquake and prohi- 
bition have transformed the town of Mark ‘Twain 
and Bret Harte into a fair likeness of Kansas City 
and Peoria. Such is the vitality of tradition. For 
Los Angeles the same gentleman reserves the epi- 
thet,—‘The soul of Iowa.” 

Perhaps the fault hes in the ironic power of a 
name, for, if its history is to be credited, the place 
has never been angelic. For almost 100 years after 
its founding in 1781, it was a town of rough and 
ready, draw-yer-gun-and-be-damned-to-yuh west- 
erners, as independent in their ways and as true 

271 


272 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


in their aims as the gold-seeking gentry who made 
San Francisco famous. 

From the city of narrow, motor-crowded streets, 
anaemic mid-westerners, and sappy “metaphysi- 
cians” back to the days when swarthy dons stalked 
about the Plaza in tight green jackets trimmed with 
gold; when the caballeros came thundering by, 
gleaming with silver; when cafeterias were gay 
drinking places, and when a mild city ordinance 
suggested that white men should avoid consummat- 
ing their amours with Indian lasses in the public 
streets, is a far off shout. Yet once upon a time 
this Mecca of the middle classes was dominated by 
such gentlemen as Nasario Dominguez, Bernardo 
Yorba, José Sepulveda and Don José Maria Ver- 
dugo, who, in their picturesque serapes and wide 
sombreros, made this southern town a place of vivid 
distinction. Early of a spring morning one might 
see the haughty Don Antonio Maria Lugo come 
prancing by on his jet black steed, followed by a 
mounted procession of sixteen sons, all well over 
six feet in height and arrayed, each of them, in 
finery that exceeded by far the value of a modern 
flivver. 

Gone are the favorite sports of the Latin civili- 
zation that enlivened this southern Pacific coast. 
Once men shouted at bull fights, within a stone’s 
' throw of the Plaza; once the streets were strewn 
with the carcasses of heroic cocks; once the gay 
balls and fandangoes and feasts lasted for half a 
week; once the streets resounded till midnight with 
the laughter of tipsy revellers and the playful shots 


SU 





IN THE LATE FIFTIES 


ANGELES 


iS) 


L 





BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 273 


of care-free worshippers of Chance. Now all, all 
is still save the rattle of Fords and the clatter of 
thick plates in the steaming cafeterias. 

Once the populace of Nigger Alley so resented 
convention that when Henry Allen in deed and 
truth did lawfully take and marry Doria Concha it 
vented its righteous indignation, celebrated its dis- 
grace by mobbing the hapless bridegroom with old 
eggs and empty bottles. Now it brays with the 
Rotarians and joins the Eastern Star. 

Once the hills were clad with vines and the presses 
were hard put in the service of parched throats; 
once the lights were never dimmed in the Bella 
Union, and the El Dorado flowed with golden 
liquors. Now the Bella Union is no more and the 
El] Dorado long ago bore a steeple and was trans- 
formed into a Methodist chapel by Parson Bland. 
All is deadly, dumb and democratic. 

But these later consummations were a long and a 
furious time coming. 

In 1854, with a population of less than four thou- 
sand, Los Angeles “averaged one homicide a day 
for every day in the year.” * According to the 
same authority “The Southern Californian of 
March 7, 1855, carried this brief notice: ‘Last 
Sunday night was a brisk night for killing. Four 
men were shot and killed and several wounded in 
a shooting affray,’”’ 

The Los Angeles Star expressed its dismay con- 
cerning an unpleasantness in these words: “Men 
hack one another in pieces with pistols and other 

* A History of California, by Robert Glass Cleland. 


274 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


cutlery as if God’s image were of no more worth 
than the life of one of the two or three thousand 
dogs that prowl about our streets.” 

In 1853 there were more murders in California 
than in any state of the Union, and Los Angeles 
proudly led the rest of California by a large major- 
ity. It may well be noted just here that Los An- 
geles had been the metropolis of the state for a 
period of sixty-five years during the pioneer epoch: 
San Francisco came into sudden prominence at the 
time of the gold rush of 1849. 

At about the same period, according to Mr. Har- 
ris Newmark,* there occurred a happy incident 
which is typical of the frontier milieu and its code 
of justice: A certain man “presented himself as 
candidate for the office of sheriff; and, in order to 
capture the vote of the native element, he also of- 
fered to marry the daughter of an influential Mex- 
ican. A bargain was concluded and, as a result, he 
forthwith assumed the responsibilities and dangers 
of both shrieval and matrimonial life. 

“Before the sheriff had possessed this double 
dignity very long, however, a gang of horse-thieves 
began depredations around Los Angeles. A posse 
was immediately organized to pursue the despera- 
does, and after a short chase they located the band 
and brought them in. . . . Imagine the sheriff’s 
dismay when he found that the leader was none 
other than his own brother-in-law whom he had 
never before seen! 

“To make the story short, the case was tried and 


* Sixty Years in Southern California, by Harris Newmark. 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 275 


the prisoner was found guilty; but owing to influz 
ence (to which most juries in those days were very 
susceptible) there was an appeal for judicial leni- 
ency. Judge Dryden, therefore, in announcing the 
verdict, said to the sheriff’s brother-in-law,— The 
jury finds you guilty as charged . . . but the jury 
recommends clemency. Accordingly, I declare you 
a free man, and you may go about your business.’ 
Thereupon someone in the courtroom asked: ‘What 
is his business?’ ‘To which the Judge, never flinch- 
ing, shouted: ‘Horse-stealing, sir! horse-steal- 
ing! 9 99 

From 1848 to 1854 there was only one prominent 
negro in this lively city, Peter Biggs, famous as 
the “Black Democrat” and the municipal barber. 
On the side Pete was go-between for lonely gen- 
tlemen and ladies of easy virtue. Moreover he was 
aspeculator. Inthe year 1849, according to Major 
Horace Bell, San Francisco was infested with enor- 
mous rats. Los Angeles, on the other hand, bristled 
with cats. The negro, having an eye to American 
business efficiency, undertook a monopoly of 
southern rat catchers for the northern city. Fur- 
tively he walked the streets at night and while the 
white and Mexican populations were busied in 
shooting, cutting, gambling, drinking and making 
unlovely love, he experienced but little difficulty in 
gathering cats. These were caged, crated and 
shipped to San Francisco, where they fetched in 
open market from sixteen to one hundred dollars 
apiece. 

A few years later the same gentleman had an 


276 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


unfortunate experience as a result of social pre- 
judice. One of the characteristically democratic 
“grand balls” of the period was being given, and 
the belle of the room was a particularly popular 
prostitute, known familiarly as Dofia Ramona. 

Hither came one of the city’s elect citizens, Mr. 
Aleck Bell, seeking amusement and the lady’s hand 
for the opening waltz. Dofia Ramona informed 
the gentleman that she was engaged for the mo- 
ment, but would be pleased to grant him the sec- 
ond dance. But when the music began Bell was 
enraged to behold the damsel in the arms of none 
other than black Pete, now resplendent in correct 
evening dress, and radiating pleasure, pride and 
perfume. 

There was only one thing for a gentleman to do, 
draw his gun and have an immediate understand- 
ing. ‘The music was stopped by the flourish of a 
Colt, and in icy tones the Southern gentleman in- 
quired whether Madame preferred a nigger to a 
white man, 

“Sir,” she said, “I consider it a privilege.” 

In reply to this social heresy Mr. Bell opened 
fire, and the negro, with flying coat-tails, fled from 
the room, nor did he stop until he reached the har- 
bor of San Pedro, twenty miles away. To show 
the generous and forgiving nature of these warm 
blooded people, however, it is necessary to relate 
that next day the whole town grieved for its enter- 
prising barber, Aleck Bell repented of his little im- 
petuosity and the negro was received to the bosom 
of the metropolis once more. 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 277 


One must, in fairness, say this much: The early 
American pioneers were not responsible for the 
present state of things. 

They were upstanding, fearless men who, seeing 
the tremendous opportunities that were here in the 
Fifties, and sensing a larger freedom than pre- 
vailed in New England, came to this spot to raise 
sheep, cattle and oranges for the good of their own 
souls and the greater advantage of their families. 
They dwelt in large, thick-walled, wide-doored com- 
fortable quarters, and exercised a generous hospi- 
tality; and, within the limits of decency, were men 
of their own opinions. They did not stampede nor 
snivel, Most of their descendants have shriveled 
down to dull conformity, or gone to the devil from 
too great a prosperity. 

The stranger, however, will find at least this 
remnant of the ancient ways: anormal and whole- 
some lack of suspicion. The Westerner going East 
finds that his Traveller’s check is more often than 
not suspected of being counterfeit, and at the bank 
to which he has been directed he will be treated as 
a possible thief. Here the EKasterner is astounded 
to find his practically unidentified check accepted 
with careless ease, his good standing assumed, and 
his person uninsulted. His only devil is the realtor. 

It is more than possible that the downfall of Los 
Angeles came about through the following sequence 
of events: The years 1863-64 were the rainless 
years, and during the severe and unexpected 
drought cattle perished by the thousands. The 
ranchers were desperate: many were utterly ru- 


278 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ined. One ranch of 27,000 acres was offered for 
the price of taxes—one hundred and fifty dollars 
—, and city lots, now worth hundreds of thou- 
sands, were refused at a dollar and a half apiece. 
Then it was that the ranchers opened great sec- 
tions of their land to colonists from the Middle 
West. At about this time the news had gone 
abroad that the now vaunted climate was inimical 
to the consumption germ. And then came the rail- 
roads. In 1877 the Southern Pacific ran down 
from the north, and in the early eighties it was 
joined by the Sante Fé. These two railway com- 
panies flew at one another’s throats in deadly com- 
petition. During the rate war that followed, the 
price of a ticket from the Mississippi Valley to the 
land of health and open spaces fell to the round 
sum of one hundred cents. Who could resist? The 
diseased poured in and spread their tents upon a 
thousand hills. 'The rheumatics were next, and 
they signalled to their neighbors, the retired farmers 
from the chilly corn belt. ‘Tuberculars, rheumatics 
and retired farmers! A susceptible crew,—easy 
pickin’s for the Boston mind-healers and preachers 
of spiritual uplift. The parasites swarmed in 
droves to the feast. Out of this mess there grew 
and fattened the livest and most persistent gang of 
land pirates that the world has ever known. It be- 
came a crime to criticise California; a felony to 
whisper of an earthquake; to frown upon the 
climate was equivalent to committing rape. The 
old timers, filled with nausea, sought their graves. 

Yet even while they still invigorated the earth 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 279 


with the glamor of their haleness, the suggestion of 
a certain ill fame in the city’s officially angelic title 
was, as we have seen, already historic. And even 
this year of grace and puritanism (1925) the same 
suggestion is frequently noticeable. This is partly 
owing to the influx of eastern criminals who, be- 
cause of the inconvenient migration of millionaires 
from New York and Chicago, and because of the 
rigors of a severe climate, elect to spend their win- 
ters in Southern California: owing also to the al- 
leged immoralities of the moving picture kings and 
queens: owing, finally, to the grasping nature of 
the aforementioned realtors, who operate without 
regard to season. 

On the other hand, the ill repute of the city may 
arise from the disappointment of the expectant 
tourist who, having read of the above recited de- 
linquencies, hopes to find the place an American 
Port Said, reeking with wine and the hootcheekoot- 
chee. He arrives to discover a population of Lowa 
farmers and sun-burned old maids in an endless 
chain of cafeterias, movie palaces and state picnics. 
He bursts over a whole column of some obscure 
eastern magazinelet, and declares that the city of 
the angels is just as dull as the traditional kingdom 
of heaven. 

And he is exactly right; for Los Angeles is a 
wholly typical, post-Volsteadian, American big 
town. Its charms are matters of climate and out- 
lying scenery—things that most of our other cities 
do not have in such abundance. The buildings, 
streets and people might well be the buildings, 


280 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


streets and people of Dallas, Cleveland or Des 
Moines. 

Apart from the climate and scenery, the sole 
things that stand out are glittering sedans of HKu- 
ropean make, owned by ex-farm hands and café 
wenches who, because of a dimple or a wart, have 
been enthroned in the gaudy kingdom of the screen. 
These vacant-eyed children of the back alleys pro- 
vide thrills for retired Iowans, whilst they them- 
selves seek new sensations in ancient vices imported 
from the sea ports of the Mediterranean. 

Well, what of it? If the place exhibits all the 
vices of the middle plains, it is also alive with the 
same eagerness in pursuit of an illusory progress 
and a conventionally idealized culture. I am con- 
vinced that there is much more familiarity with 
“high brow” books in this too frequently berated 
city than in any other considerable center of popu- 
lation west of Chicago. Marcel Proust, James 
Joyce, Paul Morand, Rémy de Gourmont and Jac- 
ob Wasserman are pawed over in a hundred 
women’s clubs every week, and the shelves of the 
average middle-class home are laden with the novels 
of Sheila Kaye-Smith, Brett Young, D. H. Law- 
rence, and Joseph Hergesheimer; the walls are 
hung with Austin Spares, and copies of Gauguin 
and Matisse; the pianos are scattered over with the 
dotted sheets of Strauss, Debussy, Palmgren and 
Rimsky Korsakoff. 

The people who thus decorate themselves may 
have no genuine culture; may, indeed, be addicted 
to the secret use of chewing gum, and be furtive 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 281 


admirers of Mary Pickford: but these are national 
crimes and are not to be attributed to a local weak- 
ness. I repeat, therefore, that the citizens of Los 
Angeles may have the vices of the Middle West, 
but they also have its redeeming virtue—a fevered 
yearning for vaster mental horizons. 

Tame? Certainly. The people who daily flivver 
from Hill Street to Hollywood do the goose step 
to perfect time. They will stand for anything, vote 
for anything, believe anything that appears in pub- 
lic print. They will permit themselves to live un- 
der more nonsensical ordinances than any people 
on earth, A suburban example of this mania may 
be cited as fairly typical. The Long Beach fa- 
thers declared as follows: 

“No person shall indulge in caresses, hugging, 
fondling, embracing, spooning, kissing or wrestling 
with any person or persons of the opposite sex in 
or upon or near any public park, avenue, street, 
court, way alley or place, or on the beach, or any 
other public place . . . and no person shall sit or 
lie with his or her head, or any other portion of his 
or her person upon any portion of a person or per- 
sons of the opposite sex upon or near any of the 
said public places.” 

Provincial. During the season of 1924-25 Los 
Angeles undertook its first grand opera. The op- 
eras were not especially attractive, but the attempt 
was not to be discouraged, and many were hopeful. 
Then, on the occasion of the last performance, it 
seemed necessary that there should be a long mo- 
ment of self-congratulation. For this purpose the 


282 Tuer TAMING OF THE F'RONTIER 


President, a jurist of local fame, was chosen spokes- 
man, and his pleasant task was that of advertising 
all the deacons, elders and dowagers who had made 
the supreme sacrifice of opening their homes to con- 
spiratory high teas, and had loaned their valuable 
names, or their stenographers to the laudable en- 
terprise. 

Appropriate pause was made after each illus- 
trious social climber was mentioned, to permit of 
enthusiastic hand-clapping from the boxes and the 
sycophants of boxes; and after several scores of 
souls had thus been made happy, and the eminent 
judge was about to make a regretful exit in favor 
of an impatient director, a vulgar yokel from the 
gallery boomed down the honest query: “Why 
don’t you drag in the stage hands?’ Perhaps the 
President of the first opera association would have 
done better to have named all the aspiring ladies 
of the city whilst he was about it, for it is now an- 
nounced that a rival organization has been formed 
to bestow upon the hungry citizens yet more ex- 
tensive means of self-display. At present the out- 
look is very dark. 

The same situation exists with regard to the inde- 
pendent theatre. At the close of the late war a few 
idealists got together for the purpose of launching 
what they called a “Theatre Arts Alliance.” A 
rather wonderful site was chosen, and thereon, amid 
sage-clad hills, was to be built a huge outdoor audi- 
torium for the presentation of Greek drama, con- 
certs and the like. For more intimate purposes, a 
part of this greater theatre was to be provided with 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 283 


means of inclosure, and here not plays alone, but 
pictures, sculpture and dancing were to have their 
turn. Around this inspired spot dwellings were 
to be provided, wherein the artist might dream and 
create to his soul’s content. 

It was all very beautiful, very generous; but it 
required money. Then came the rich lady, with the 
gift—and the string. The gift was to be substan- 
tial, but the string was inevitable. For the lady 
was also an idealist, and her great dream was of an 
international, a world religion: and—she had writ- 
ten a play. The theatre was to be a means of re- 
ligious propaganda, and her play was to be the first, 
and, as it proved, the last consideration. 

Because of this the unmystical and pessimistic 
withdrew in confusion. Later the lady also with- 
drew and rolled her own. And that is how the 
Hollywood hills came to have “The Christ Play” 
for the greater delectation of the fundamentalists,* 
and their tourist relatives. The original group was 
left with a large plot of ground and a great out- 
door theatre, which is now given over to popular 
concerts. 

Following an example so richly productive of 
publicity, a number of other ladies organized thea- 
tres which have met with more or less ephemeral 
success. If some plan could be devised whereby 
every ambitious woman of limited beauty and un- 
limited wealth could be guaranteed a position of 
supreme, exalted and undisputed authority for even 
a single day during the season, no doubt Los An- 


* Derived from “fundament.” 


284 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


geles could be assured one of the largest independ- 
ent theatres in the world. 

If the endowed independents have completely 
failed, the unendowed have fared but little better. 
After the Ordynski fiasco a few years ago, Mr. 
Frayne Williams—then just over from a long ap- 
prenticeship under St. John Ervine—organized 
the Literary Theatre, presenting such things as 
“The Shadow of the Glen,” ‘Hindle Wakes,” 
“John Gabriel Borkman,” “The Wild Duck,” “‘The 
Knight of the Burning Pestle,” “The Devil’s Dis- 
ciple’ and “Macaire” for more than five seasons. 
These plays have been skillfully produced under 
greater than ordinary difficulties, and there have 
been moderate houses; but the regulars have made 
it impossible to get adequate hearing, and the popu- 
lace as a whole has been indifferent. At present, 
under the auspices of the State University, his en- 
terprise is barely meeting expenses. 

Another theatre was beginning to attract atten- 
tion in 1924, and opened with “The Hairy Ape,” 
and “Six Characters in Search of an Author;” but 
when the regulars saw that there was danger of its 
becoming a success, they bought off certain of the 
leading newspapers, brought pressure to bear upon 
the owners of the theatre building, and, by depriv- 
ing them of both advertising and house, firmly put 
an end to their ambitions. The public moved on in 
apathetic bewilderment. 

But the town is not devoid of amusement, if one 
knows where to find it. There is the big Method- 
ist pow wow at Trinity Auditorium, with an ath- 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 285 


letic champion of the Ku Klux Klan before its foot- 
lights,— a person with loud voice and enough 
absurdity to move the profoundest pessimist to im- 
moderate laughter. The Baptist clown does stunts 
at the Philharmonic theatre that cause the local 
shoe clerks and janitors to jam the doors, and give 
the cafeteria hounds hoochless hebie jeebies. ‘The 
“Four Square” gospeller—a screeching lady par- 
sonette—does a one act that brings joy to thou- 
sands. Any one of these three popular fundamen- 
talists is sufficient to insure this city of the sera- 
phim against the arrival of Dr. Billy Sunday. We 
simply do not need him: our three ring circus is 
enough. 

Also there are the cults. It is beyond question 
that there are more nonsense cults in the environs 
of this city than anywhere else on earth. 

They were emptied here out of Boston by way 
of Chicago. The milder climate enables them to 
keep the illusion that they have conquered disease 
through spiritual power. ‘They are the sick sur- 
vivors of New England transcendentalism, and 
while they are no more native than eucalyptus trees, 
they provide a sort of comedy that is not without its 
merits. 

All are here, from the venerable and materially 
respectable Christian Scientists on down to the fol- 
lowers of Frater Aleister Crowley, with their il- 
luminating rites of black, black magic. Some of 
these fakirs have handsome lodges erected at the 
expense of gullible millionaires whose intellectual 
culture had hitherto been confined to the higher 


286 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


realms of swine breeding. Many a broken movie 
queen finds solace in these palaces of opulent op- 
timism. 

That the environment is healthy for more honest 
fakirs is shown by the comparatively recent experi- 
ence of “General” Nicholas Zogg. This suave gen- 
tleman had the insight and courage to select Los 
Angeles for a rather daring experiment. Here, 
within a stone’s throw of Mexico, he made the claim 
that he had but recently been one of the leading 
military commanders in the land of Porfirio Diaz, 
and, since it had happened that, on the way to some 
Damascus, the scales had fallen from his eyes, he 
now desired to become the savior of his most unfor- 
tunate country. 

He wished to begin reform from the idyllic re- 
gion of Yucatan, where, he declared, were thou- 
sands of Christ-like communists, living in a happy 
state of brotherly love; where ardent craftsmen, 
from the sheer love of beauty, created exquisite 
things from gold and silver and spread them out 
on the streets for the delight and possession of 
those who might care to see and take. The coun- 
try, however, was in sad need of funds. 

Dozens of sentimental ladies responded to the 
gentleman’s eloquent prayers, and thousands were 
raised for the coming civilization. Unfortunately 
the Federal authorities were in search of the great 
leader, who was wanted, so it was said, under sev- 
eral names throughout the states. He was literally 
snatched from the banquet tables of his admiring 
supporters, who were then ready to follow him into 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 287 


the heart of Central America. General Zogg, it 
seems, had never spent more than six months in 
Mexico during his entire life, and was not notice- 
ably proficient in the use of Spanish. It cannot be 
said that Los Angeles is inhospitable. 

Nor is it unliterary. One of the chief methods 
for measuring the degree of success is the deter- 
mination of mass production, Just apply it to the 
business of letters in the precincts of this throbbing 
California super-town and see what you discover. 
Living on the fringes of Los Angeles are Upton 
Sinclair, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Will Levington 
Comfort, Rupert Hughes and Zane Grey: the 
combined annual sales of these indefatigible writers 
will run into millions, and will, I believe, excel the 
total production of all the novelists east of the 
Mississippi. Burroughs—author of the Tarzan 
tales—and Sinclair—author of “The Jungle’’—are 
the most popular of living writers, among the Bol- 
sheviki. And the democratic standards of taste— 
whatever they are—must ultimately conquer the 
world: that is, if we are to credit the opinions of 
the Rotarians. In a recent circular of his, Sin- 
clair announces that Johan Bojer has called him 
“Master.” What reply can a mere American critic 
make to that? 

Mr. H. L. Mencken, not long ago, made the as- 
sertion that more manuscripts came into his office 
from this region than from any other part of the 
United States: and, recently, a New York literary 
agent, after taking careful census, came to a sim- 
ilar conclusion. Both authorities make the gesture 


288 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


condemnatory and agree that the bulk of the stuff 
is rubbish. From this Mr. Mencken infers that Los 
Angeles is hopeless. That seems to me a very su- 
perficial judgment. [If it be true that there is such 
a vast amount of—shall we say it?—scribbling in . 
these parts, it must go to show: 1. That Los An- 
geles is a degree less materialistic than other Ameri- 
can cities of comparable population,—that it con- 
tains more idealists. 2. That there is a greater hun- 
ger for what is popularly called culture: in a 
word, more ambition. 

That the writing is bad is but an indication that 
the West is yet unsophisticated. That the stuff 
exists in such quantities shows that it is not yet 
blasé and bored. If my conclusions are at all sound 
it may indicate that this abused region holds much 
for the future. 

In this connection one should, perhaps, point out 
the fact that for many years Los Angeles, and its 
immediate environs, has proved itself one of the 
most appreciative musical centers of North Amer- 
ica, and, as a further token of its unmaterialism, 
its suburban hills are fairly dotted with the palm- 
thatched studios of budding painters and sculptors. 

And now, being somewhat of a bibliophile, I must 
grow more serious. For not only has the Hunting- 
ton library come to the city gates; not only do the 
city walls hem in the largest collections of Dryden 
and Oscar Wilde in the world: but Los Angeles 
alone has the distinction of harboring the most ex- 
cellent book shops in all the West. 

To begin at the bottom, two of the largest de- 


BALLYHOOERS IN HEAVEN 289 


partment stores—Robinson’s and Bullock’s—have 
sections that will compare favorably, both as to the 
extent and quality of stock, with Marshall Field’s 
in Chicago and Brentano’s in New York. Parker’s 
is one of the best places to buy new books in Amer- 
ica, and he one of the most intelligent of the old 
style bookmen. 

Besides a half dozen other shops for new books 
there are nearly a score of second hand stalls that 
boast of more old books than any similar places 
west of New York. Dawson’s is a place for rare 
books, where a certain air of old-worldiness persists 
in spite of the realtors and progressives. Except 
on the Atlantic coast he has no worthy competitor 
in the States. Moreover, one doesn’t need to pine 
for Rosenbach’s or George D. Smith’s when one 
can conveniently drop into George M. Millard’s 
exquisite collection of first editions, Kelmscotts and 
incunabula in the suburb of Pasadena. If one may 
judge by symptoms there is more reading and more 
discrimination in reading in Los Angeles than in 
San Francisco. Parker claims, I believe, never to 
have handled a novel by Harold Bell Wright. 

Well, there you have it. A rare mixture—of 
evangelical mountebanks, new thoughters, swamis, 
popular novelists, movie persons, solemn pamphlet- 
eers, realtors, ku kluxers, joiners of the thou- 
sand-and-one fraternal orders of good will and 
everlasting sunshine, artists, consumptives, music 
lovers, cripples, retired farmers, ex beer magnates, 
—mostly American to the core, and as typical as 
sign boards and peanut stands. ‘There is the old 


290 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Plaza, the most interesting bit remaining, swarming 
with impoverished Mexicans and thrifty Japanese; 
towering hills in the mid-city, still bearing the de- 
caying houses of the old pioneers: the shifting busi- 
ness district, looking, for all the world, like St. 
Louis or Milwaukee: and the outlying heights, 
stretching toward Hollywood or the sea, and cov- 
ered now with new palaces in Italian villa, French 
Renaissance, or Hopi Indian architecture for the 
pleasuring of the plutocrats. In the midst of this 
strange hish-hash is the largest woman’s club in 
America, and the greatest number of God-fearing 
Puritans. 

A. few rebels look on and sneer, but their sneers 
are unobserved. ‘The crowd surges by, seizing fran- 
tically at the uplift pamphlets handed out by fagged 
and sad-eyed women for the enhancement of the 
town-boomers: “Take a free ride to Eve’s Garden, 
the Gigantic new subdivision planned for you by 
Fawn and Leach, the Realty Kings. Absolutely 
Free!” 

And yet, the bug of optimism seizes me; I suc- 
cumb, It is now my firm conviction, Mencken not- 
withstanding, that out of this motley throng of 
goose-steppers and propagandists there will grow 
the most splendid center of genuine culture and en- 
lightenment on this continent. For, with all its 
uncouthness, the place is alive with illusions, and 
illusions are the stuff of art. 


CHEYENNE: 


Tue Witp West Sets Its ATMOSPHERE 
By 
Cary Abbott 





CHEYENNE 
HORTLY after the Birth of a Nation had 


been achieved, another smaller but violent par- 
turition took place in what was then Dakota Ter- 
ritory in 1867. Of all the hectic origins of the 
Western cities, Cheyenne’s was the most thrilling. 
Even those communities which have a similar be- 
ginning concede to Cheyenne its premier position 
as the worst of the tough towns. Many conser- 
vative people who have endured life there since 
the early days have tried to live down this wild 
start, but they can do little about it but deplore 
the fact that most of America still believes that 
Cheyenne is a thoroughly “bad’’ place. 

It may be as respectable, attractive, and syn- 
thetically sophisticated a place as ever spawned 
a country club. Nevertheless, romantic legend 
persists in painting the town “red.” Cheyenne 
must be wide-open, cowboys shooting up the main 
street, vigilantes hanging desperadoes by the 
dozen, Jezebels playing Lorelei from the front 
porch, Indians and cattle kicking up dust in the 
outskirts, ete, etc. 

Unfortunately for those who crave “atmos- 
phere,’ Cheyenne is, and has been for years, de- 
void of these attractions. Drinking is only car- 
ried on in bathrooms and alleys as is customary 

293 


294 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


all over the United States; cowboys, except dur- 
ing the Frontier show, come to town in automo- 
biles wearing the quietest possible clothes; the 
nearest Indians doze through life a couple of hun- 
dred miles away, unless exhibiting their paint and 
feathers in Hollywood or London for a considera- 
tion; the cattle no longer rove the illimitable 
spaces, but are tended, nursed and dipped for 
various ailments like pet dogs or canaries; deni- 
zens (good old euphemism of the journals!) of 
the tenderloin are no longer denizens, as such; 
vigilantes’ committees were long ago replaced by 
the ponderous though less efficacious law; nothing 
of the old West is left but the dust, and even 
that is being conquered by paved roads and grain 
crops. Even the wind, the unforgettable Rocky 
Mountain Zephyr hymned by Bill Nye and cursed 
by everyone else,—even the wind has lost its 
virility. 

Yet the legend of the ideal tough Western town 
lives on. Surely, Cheyenne must have been a 
fearful affair in 1867, when the Union Pacific 
Railroad stopped its westward building opera- 
tions there for the winter. When the railroad 
land agent staked out his quarters against the 
simultaneous arrival of the construction gang and: 
the winter, all of the flotsam and a good deal of 
the jetsam of humanity who had been following 
up the Union Pacific as it was moving west, moved 
from Julesburg, Colorado, their last place of rev- 
elry. This aggregation moved up to Cheyenne 
on flat-cars, and the spectacle of all these wild 


Tue Witp West Setus Its ATMOSPHERE 295 


characters and camp-followers of divers shady 
professions traveling in this al fresco manner 
earned the beautiful and appropriate name of 
“Hell on Wheels.” 

With this crew of holy terrors there arrived of 
course all sorts and conditions of people,—railroad 
men, soldiers, bull-whackers who were hauling the 
ways and means to set up winter quarters for the 
crowd, plainsmen, cowmen, settlers adventuring 
for the first time into the great West. Shacks, 
tents, dug-outs and a few more or less permanent 
structures arose out of the treeless prairie to form 
the semblance of a town. As the winter pro- 
gressed, the motley and volatile population 
amused itself in the manner beloved by all readers 
of fiction and all the “hounds” for Western 
movies. The vices all flourished, scarlet and un- 
restrained. Shootings and murders occurred with 
delightful frequency. 

Expensive, too, all this joy was, even by post- 
war standards. At McDaniel’s theater, which was 
really a dance hall, admission was gained by toss- 
ing a dollar into the barrel at the door, which 
each morning was rolled off to a bank to be 
emptied. 

It was a place, likewise, for the grandiose and 
romantic in gesture. Especially of virile friend- 
ship. An Old Timer spent two thirds of a long 
life entertaining a tamer Cheyenne with an oc- 
currence which made McDaniel’s even more 
famous than its general reputation for genial 
bawdiness. The Old Timer, then young, stood 


296 TuE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


in the place one night beside a post in a far corner 
of the main hall. Gambling raged. Thirsty males 
roared and whined their orders over a full bar. 
A. score of fresh-painted damsels shrieked and 
postured suggestivities from the stage. It was a 
large night, in short, and nobody thinking about 
cemeteries. 

Then suddenly two shots boomed. They came 
in that curiously swift sequence which, to the so- 
phisticated, advertised that a two-gun man was 
plying his art. My Old Timer thought swiftly 
and painfully of cemeteries, as his left ear tingled 
from a bullet’s wind, and then his right. 

The Old Timer always concluded the account— 
and probably still does wherever in Elysium bed- 
time stories are told to the children of the Homeric 
heroes—this way: 

“When that fust shot come, I was skeert some- 
body was trying to pick me off. But when that 
second bullit just grazed my right ear, I knew it 
was just my ole friend Bill playin’ a joke on 
me.” 

And sure enough it was, for the tale is fairly 
well authenticated. Bill had come up from the 
wilder rural regions, and caught sight of my Old 
Timer before the Old Timer had seen Bill. So 
he played this gorgeous parody of the children’s 
game of coming up from behind, clapping hands 
over the eyes of an unsuspecting one and making 
him “guess who this is.”” Bill made the Old Timer 
“guess who this was’ by the way he shot. Such 
were the frolics of friendship in Cheyenne in the 


THe Wivp West SeEtxts Its ATMOSPHERE 297 


careless *60’s. Foes were more careful only in 
that they took pains to shoot within the circle 
bounded by the ears. 

However, after the worst element became too 
free with other people’s lives and money, in ab- 
sence of law machinery, a vigilantes’ committee 
began the genial task of ridding the community 
of a number of the more callous gunmen. My 
sister’s godmother, arriving as a bride at night, 
saw, as her first glimpse of the golden West by 
daylight, two men hanging by their necks to a 
telegraph pole,—the successful result of the vigi- 
lantes’ handiwork. Even after the territory was 
organized, a mob one night clamored for the life 
of some particularly wicked character, and in spite 
of the pleas of the newly-made mayor and the 
thunders of the United States attorney, the crowd 
had to have its blood, and the desperado was duly 
lynched. 

In the spring the railroad went on its way west- 
ward, leaving the town to its fate. Unlike many 
Western towns with such hectic beginnings, 
Cheyenne’s geographic position made it per- 
manent. Shortly the Union Pacific built a line 
to Denver from there, as Cheyenne was the near- 
est point to the metropolis of the mining craze. 
Freighting outfits found Cheyenne a convenient 
center to haul to the Black Hills, to South Pass 
City where gold was exciting interest, even into 
Montana. Between Cheyenne and the neighbor- 
ing army post a great depot called Camp Carlin 
made its appearance, furnishing supplies to all the 


298 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


numerous garrisons which at one time dotted the 
West. 

To be sure, after the first winter, when about 
six thousand people milled about like cattle on the 
bleak town site, the population dwindled as the 
greater part of the rag-tag and bobtail moved on 
with the railroad. Nevertheless, enough stayed to 
realize that money was to be made in the new dis- 
tributing center for the future Territory, and that 
cattle could be raised profitably in this grassy 
wilderness. With the continual pouring of set- 
tlers into the West after the Civil War, Cheyenne 
perpetually overflowed with adventurous souls, as 
fitted a self-confessed gateway to the unknown 
and boundless West. 

Lots sold for outrageous prices, stores, banks, 
schools and churches sprang up. Dwelling-houses 
and a gorgeous and more sybaritic type of saloon 
appeared. A court-house was erected, a building 
now destroyed to make way for a “bigger and bet- 
ter’ one; but the old court-house had a history as 
interesting as its appearance was hideous. So 
quickly did the town erect itself that it earned the 
name of “the Magic City.” The place was in- 
corporated. The territory was carved out of the 
mammoth Dakota and other vague empires, and 
organized. A capitol building then became neces- 
sary but pending the territory’s ability to erect 
it, the first legislatures held their sessions in the 
second story of a frame house. A handful of 
boosting and outwardly conventional persons ar- 
rived—precursors of the Babbitts of the 1920's. 


Toe Witp West Sets Irs ATMOSPHERE 299 


Meanwhile, hardy pioneers and plainsmen had 
established, or were establishing themselves in 
various strategic places over the country, starting 
the cattle industry in a modest way, which in a 
few years was to become the paramount industry 
of the plains, wild and Indian-infested as they were. 
Cheyenne was almost the center of this region 
where great herds were trailed up from Texas or 
driven out from the country to the east—a region 
abominated by the great cow barons because cattle 
in large quantities could not thrive there, owing 
to the cutting up of lands for farms. Out in 
Wyoming Territory, the cattle ranged at large, 
identified only by the owners’ brands, and rounded 
up once or twice a year. ‘The wide, open-air life 
of the range, combined with the rising price of 
cattle on eastern markets, began to draw young 
and aristocratic bloods from our Eastern seaboard 
and even from England and Scotland. As a 
large majority of the cattle destined for market 
were driven into the Cheyenne stockyards for ship- 
ment, Cheyenne became the headquarters for the 
industry. 

Freedom from the conventions of more civilized 
communities throve in this high and windy atmos- 
phere. There were no uplift movements, no elab- 
orate programs of brotherly love to hamper one’s 
inclinations in those days. The cattlemen, both 
the pioneer, plainsman type, who had exchanged 
pot-shots with Indians and outlaws and the scions 
of refinement and old-world wealth, met on com- 
mon and frequently hilarious ground. ‘The 


800 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Cheyenne Club became a social center such as has 
never since been approached in the West, and 
rarely elsewhere. During the eighties, when the 
cattle business was at its height, and the profits 
from the great companies, whose herds ranged 
from Canada to Texas, were tremendous, the cat- 
tle kings had little to do but spend their money 
wildly and enjoy liberty. 

Fine horseflesh was the fashion. ‘The streets 
of the capital city of Wyoming were alive with 
turnouts of all descriptions. Horses from Ken- 
tucky, thoroughbreds and Irish hunters, cayuses 
and wild-eyed plugs cavorted bravely through the 
streets. Tallyhoes, phaetons, traps, landaus, 
broughams mingled with vulgar chuck wagons, 
stage-coaches and the various noisy and springless 
contraptions that still find favor in the army. A 
race-course was built. Members of the Club 
jockeyed their own races and afterward re- 
paired to the clubhouse where something was en- 
joyed resembling 19th hole festivities raised to the 
nth power. The prize, which was always a large 
silver cup made at Tiffany’s, then became the 
nucleus for a champagne party. The Club’s par- 
ties were as famous as the membership, and to-day 
one may see the bullet-hole in a painting of a bull 
by Paul Potter, the proud scar of an exciting 
night. 

A. lady, noted alike for her horses and her wig, 
became embroiled one day in a bet with a bank 
president as to who owned the faster animal. 
After much argument, they decided to race to the 


THe Wip West Setizs Its ArmMosPHERE 301 


middle of town, about half a mile distant. As 
the horses tore through the business streets to the 
goal, the lady’s hat and wig flew off, but she won 
the race and the bet. It was said that the wig 
had flown off to allow her the victor’s bay leaves. 
There were classicists in early Cheyenne who un- 
derstood such matters. But the populace scowled 
sardonically at the pretentious jest and parodied 
it with the quip that the lady had won the bay 
rum bottle. 

Fort Russell people, usually keen on horses, 
had one officer in those days, who showed strange 
knowledge of how to hitch up a horse. Very at- 
tentive to a town lady, one night he invited her 
to the post to a hop. Arriving at her house after 
- dark, he escorted her to the waiting carriage. On 
the way, she noticed that the horse seemed to be 
moving in a curious manner, and thought perhaps 
that it had partaken of a trifle too much as had her 
partner. However, on coming into the glare of 
light in front of the Post Hall, the poor horse 
was discovered by the much delighted throng to 
be hitched to the carriage in such a way that the 
animal was astraddle one shaft! 

Conviviality was rampant, and the gossip of the 
times was built on many merry episodes. Matri- 
mony arrived even during the railroad epoch, but 
did not always go hand in hand with the plateau’s 
new freedoms. There is a tale of a prominent cat- 
tleman who, arriving at his house after a pro- 
tracted “tear,” was greeted, by a bellicose wife 
armed with two pistols. It was several weeks be- 


302 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


fore he was allowed to enter his domain, Even — 
this affair did not cure him. Before long, he was 
in his cups again. Next morning his wife was seen 
throwing all his clothes and belongings into the 
front yard. When asked the why and wherefore, 
she replied that he had been at it again, and that 
he was going to sleep in the barn indefinitely. This 
impatient Griselda has a window to her memory 
in one of Cheyenne’s churches. 

Whatever happened to the two men who were 
trundled home in a wheelbarrow by a third part- 
ner in crime, no one has ever heard. ‘The three 
had been “whooping it up” at the Club until num- 
ber three was the only ¢ irvivor. He deemed it 
proper to see that his friends got home to their 
respective and probably irate wives, so he used this 
means of getting them there. But after he had 
thrown number one out at his door and rung the 
bell, he was nearly exhausted. So when he came 
to number two’s house, he simply left him to 
bivouae, as it were, on his own stoop. 

There is the story of a young and festive cat- 
tleman, who rode over two hundred miles by relay 
into Cheyenne to see Lily Langtry play at the 
opera house Having accomplished this much, he 
became a sort of Lochinvar, and went on with 
the Jersey Lily to the Coast. 

The first sight to greet the eyes of a newcomer 
one day was a tallyho in full cry at the station. 
The passengers seemed to be busy trying to stay 
on the vehicle with bad success. It was whispered 
that these irrational persons were a crowd of 


THe Wi West Setis [rs ATMOSPHERE 303 


Eingland’s bluest. At any rate, at this time, a 
daughter of one of the heads of a great cattle 
company (girls were scarce in those days, and had 
a most wonderful time), on being patronized by 
some superior person, informed her that she need 
not give herself such airs, as the night before she 
herself had sat down to dinner in her father’s 
house, the only girl with six British peers. 

Numerous social crises betray the somewhat 
pioneer state of things in the palmy days. ‘The 
wife of the governor, who was away somewhere, 
heard that the President of the United States 
was to stop in Cheyenne. Her train and the Presi- 
dent’s were to come in at the same time, giving 
her no time to prepare herself for the honor of 
entertaining him. There was nothing she could do 
about it except to change her clothes in the bag- 
gage car, her train being one of the old-fashioned 
variety that often carried no Pullmans. She did, 
and the President heard all about it at the re- 
ception. 

One old settler who had to make the stage trip 
to Deadwood often became frightened at the pros- 
pect of being shot by a road-agent who had been 
recently raiding all Black Hiulls-bound traffic. But 
he had to go, so he made his wife go with him, 
and she carried nearly twenty thousand dollars 
in gold on her person destined for a Deadwood 
bank, all because her timorous husband hoped the 
bandit might let the women go unmolested. There 
is no climax to this tale, as the lady was the only 
sufferer, since she had the gloomy pleasure of hav- 


804 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


ing all that weight fastened on her fore and aft. 
She may well have been the deified ancestress of 
the modern wife who, also to protect her husband 
and his Cadillac, rides through cordons of woman- 
hood-revering prohibition agents with Scotch bot- 
tles dangling more or less imperceptibly from her 
girdle. But the old breed was sturdier. Quite 
obviously it had greater heft. 

Money flowed fast in the eighties. A proof is 
in the short career of two brothers who had been 
sent out from England by an irate father with 
one million dollars on condition they would not 
darken the ancestral doors again. At the end of 
their first year, which was spent on a great ranch, 
and enlivened with wine, women, and all the ex- 
travagances possible to wealth in the eighties, they 
had “shot their wad” and, returning to England, 
were given another million, which they took to 
South Africa. Evidently these Alexanders had 
found another world to conquer, or the campaign 
turned out to be less brief; at any rate, they never 
returned to Wyoming. 

But what can one expect of a town whose gilded 
youth danced cotillions at ten o’clock in the morn- 
ing? Perhaps the fact that Cheyenne was the 
first town in the world to have electric lights had 
something to do with it. Our age of electricity is 
characterized by mad restlessness; and possibly 
the presence of this element had its effect on the 
gay inhabitants of the little Western city who 
dined and gambled and got drunk under the 
“bright lights,” before gas-mains were laid. Cer- 


“om 
vee 


ital 
ig 


& 
gin Be 
* 


be 





-DEADWOOD COACH ON FEBRUARY 19, 1887 


TYENNE 


CHE 


THE 


OF 


THE LAST TRIP 





Tue Witv West Sexzts Irs ArMosPpHERH 305 


tain it is that the little electric plant used to have 
a hard time puffing up enough current to keep 
the lights going for those who insisted on turning 
night into day. 

As for luxuries, Cheyenne had fine stores, and 
a far better discrimination for this world’s delights 
than nowadays. Several times, when someone 
wished to have such delicacies as fresh fish or oy- 
sters at a dinner-party, or whatever might be in 
season back in the States, he had these things 
sent out by express in freight-cars packed in ice, 
a formidable undertaking before these days of 
refrigerator systems on railroads. One dinner for 
twenty people, given as a sort of thank-offering re- 
garding the successful outcome of a transaction in 
cattle, cost five thousand dollars. And those were 
the days when dollar-a-plate dinners were con- 
sidered an extravagance as far west as Kansas 
City! 

There is another side to the picture of Cheyenne 
in the cattle days, of course. While there were 
those who furnished more than enough “pepper,” 
there have always been conservative, quiet “salt 
of the earth” type of people, who have kept the 
balance of business and community life, some de- 
ploring the spectacular life of the gilded ones, 
others making their stakes without ostentation and 
smiling at the gay crowd, even as ants grinned 
at the sluggard. While the fine arts could hardly 
have been said to have flourished, a number of 
splendid homes were built, the new Capitol arose, 
and the usual schools and churches. 


306 THE TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


Sometimes a regenerated magnifico lurched 
spectacularly from one side to the other. 

A prominent cattle king who had “got reli- 
gion” sufficiently to be desirous of baptism, in- 
vited a large party to witness his immersion in the 
tank at the Baptist Church. Unfortunately, 
either the Lord was not with him or the water- 
works were not functioning. The tank obstin- 
ately refused to fill. So the baptism was post- 
poned till another day; and, anticlimactical as it 
might be, all the friends gathered again, as they 
were determined not to miss the fun on any ac- 
count. 

Another important gentleman, whose religious 
feelings had not been suspected by his closest 
friends, gave a stained window to a new church. 
When he was asked by some highly surprised 
crony as. to how he, of all people, happened to 
do such a thing, he replied: “Why, I’m one of the 
pillars of the damn thing!” 

Thus passed Cheyenne’s glory. During the 
fearful winters at the end of the eighties, many 
fortunes made in cattle or in promoters’ paper 
collapsed. As cattle were unfenced, and allowed 
to shift largely for themselves, except for occa- 
sional roundups, the succession of severe snow- 
storms drove them to their death by starvation or 
suffocation in the drifts. Thousands and thou- 
sands of head perished, while human help was 
useless and futile. The “great open spaces” have 
a horribly seamy side, and eight months of winter 
is the seamiest, as any cattleman knows. The 


Tur Witp West Setts Its ATMosPHERE 307 


cattle bubble was pricked, and those who had fam- 
ily or means to fly to for aid did so, while others 
braved poverty. ‘The business of cattle raising 
continues to this day, but on a smaller and far 
more careful scale. Only a very few outfits now- 
adays can begin to be compared to the baronial 
holdings common thirty and more years ago. 
One of the last, and certainly the most pic- 
turesque performance which the cattlemen un- 
dertook in concert was the campaign conducted 
to root out from the land the small settlers and 
homesteaders. ‘These people, who had been fil- 
tering into the country in the natural coursé of 
events, were looked at with wrath, as they were 
taking up lands in fertile districts, and cutting up 
the unfenced domain, thus hindering the free 
movements of the great herds. ‘They were also 
suspected of “rustling,” and with plenty of reason. 
Therefore, the plot was woven secretly, and sud- 
denly a large number of the cattle kings, with their 
various gunmen and riders left for the north. 
Johnson County, three hundred miles away, 
was the goal for this organized attack on the small 
potatoes; and the country was to be freed by force, 
if necessary, of new settlers and the desperadoes 
who stole the mavericks of the big companies. Be- 
cause of the prominence of many of the plotters, 
the true story of this now ancient tale of trucu- 
lence has never been properly told. The accounts 
vary a good deal as to the victims of the affair, 
some of whom were killed and others spirited out 
of the region. ‘The dramatic surrounding of the 


808 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


cattlemen by the “rustlers” and their timely rescue 
by troops caused unheard-of excitement. This was 
followed by the technical arrest of the crowd of 
“invaders” by Government troops, and the raid 
ended farcically. 

Popular feeling, at first against the cattle inter- 
ests, veered suddenly. ‘The raiders were brought 
back to Cheyenne, and held in a very courteous 
imprisonment in a corral at Fort Russell. Soon 
even this mild detention, through mysterious 
means in Washington, ended. Furthermore, not 
a court would have convicted them, so strong had 
become the sympathy of the people in their favor. 
During their “incarceration,” the prisoners found 
it quite easy to get furloughs to go in to Chey- 
enne for business and pleasure. ‘The Government 
in those days could not take too seriously the as- 
sumed rights of a breezy and wealthy crowd of 
men in a remote country, up till this time prac- 
tically policed and controlled by such pioneers. 
The Johnson County “invasion,” however, was re- 
garded seriously enough to warrant the secret 
buying up of a book telling much too much, and 
thereby hurting some financial and_ political 
careers. As is usual with such publications, a few 
copies saw the light, and are to this day guarded 
with traditional secrecy. 

Politics had much to do with the dénouement 
of the raid, but then politics have been meat and 
drink, particularly drink, to Cheyenne, as being 
a capital from the beginning of things in Wyo- 
ming. Many people who point to Cheyenne’s 


THe Witp West SeExxts Irs ATMOSPHERE, 309 


noble citizenry as the great-hearted souls who first 
gave women full suffrage, do not know what a 
mighty wrangling took place on the subject in the 
shaky old two-storied building where the first 
Solons, bearded far more than the pard, thrashed 
out this weighty subject. It has been said that 
the real reason why women were allowed to vote 
at that time was because of the paucity of in- 
habitants of the territory, and the consequent de- 
sire to swell the number of votes cast for ambi- 
tious candidates. This is related to the manner 
in which Cheyenne’s census was taken in later 
years,—by going through the transcontinental 
trains at the station and taking down the neces- 
sary data from passengers, which unwittingly 
made them citizens of a town they had inhabited 
for about twenty minutes. 

Later years proved that women in Cheyenne 
were not so proud of voting. For many elections, 
the politicians could only get them to vote by send- 
ing the old-fashioned “hired” hacks around to 
their homes to take them to the polls. This method 
finally became anathema to the sore-heads of 
a continuously defeated party, and was made un- 
lawful. By that time, too, the old hacks were so 
redolent of livery stables and departed drunks 
that many women declined the honor of a free 
ride, anyway. 

One of the most delightful scenes that the newly 
completed Capitol building witnessed was the 
spectacle of a new governor, who, finding his nor- 
mal entrance to his office barricaded by a prede- 


310 THe TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


cessor disputing the election, made his joyeuse 
entrée by means of a ladder through a window! 

Cheyenne has always been unpopular politi- 
cally through the state, because, being for years 
the center of government, she has doled out the 
various state institutions to the rising young com- 
monwealths. Here the insane asylum, there the 
home for adenoid sufferers, yon the reformatory 
or the experimental station where lambs lie down 
with lions in the most up-to-date manner. The 
original five immense counties have been butchered 
into many smaller ones to make county seats for 
office-seekers to find offices. As railroads grad- 
ually built their cautious way across the wide areas 
of Wyoming, Cheyenne, although in a far corner, 
became the only logical place to foregather for 
meetings of residents from the scattered settle- 
ments and towns. Cheyenne, for some obscure 
reason, has never been the fixed capital; and every 
few years an agitation starts to move the seat of 
government to some other place. The last time 
that Cheyenne was contemplating what it would 
do with its big Capitol building, a handful of the 
tried “old hands” quietly put through a measure 
in the legislature to appropriate a huge sum to 
enlarge the building for added office room. Thus, 
before the agitators were aware of their work, 
the state was saddled with a bigger and better 
Capitol—now too costly an affair to move for 
years to come. 

During the nineties, Cheyenne lost her glamour 
as the uncrowned capital of the wild and woolly 


Tue Witp Wesr Setts Irs ArmospHern 311 


West. Railroads had put an end to the vast 
freighting business. With the decline of the In- 
dian into innocuous desuetude, the numerous little 
army posts were, one after another, dismantled, 
and Camp Carlin was left to decay. The hard win- 
ters, together with a slump in cattle prices, had 
wrought ruin to the great cattle companies, and 
the smaller ranchers gradually took over their 
lands. Sheep, too, made their appearance, much 
to the wrath of cattle-growers. Irrigation of 
lands for farming was initiated. ‘The handwrit- 
ing was on the wall for those to whom Cheyenne 
under the old order of life had been the rule. 

To-day, the “spirit of the West” is a somewhat 
sickly old man, carefully tended and nursed along 
to keep alive the old spark. Cheyenne is hor- 
ribly afraid that some day the “spirit’’ will die. 
Hence the now nationally famous and much ad- 
vertised institution known as the Frontier Days 
celebration. The idea of this, the oldest of all the 
now numerous “Wild West” shows, the “daddy of 
them all,” as reads the slogan (the old West sub- 
mits to a slogan like everybody else these days), 
sprang from a highly informal and immensely en- 
tertaining afternoon in 1897. 

A group of citizens whose like is to be found in 
all communities, decided to get together a number 
of the old cowhands and ranchers to put on an 
exhibition, or rather contest, to show their skill 
in roping steers, riding wild horses and trying 
their luck in a few races on cow-ponies. To give 
the affair a little atmosphere, one of the old stage- 


812 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


coaches used in the Deadwood days was hauled 
out of its half-forgotten resting-place, some Sho- 
shone and Arapahoe Indians were brought down 
from their reservation on flat-cars, and some 
cavalry from Fort Russell was borrowed. ‘The 
prizes for the contests were simple, and the show 
did not pretend to be more than an afternoon’s 
amusement. As the grandstand was small, people 
went out very early, to insure getting seats, taking 
their lunches along. The show was sufficiently 
good to warrant another one the following year. 
Before the town was aware of the fact, the splen- 
did work of those marvelous horsemen of the 
plains in these early celebrations became known 
to neighboring states, and the show was staged 
annually. 

These early performances had many of the 
faults of amateurish management. Long delays 
between races and contests, combined with sudden 
dramatic climaxes unlooked for by the manage- 
ment, made the afternoons in the grandstand or 
on horseback in the arena both boring and thrill- 
ing. Occasionally a steer would climb over all 
possible obstacles apparently burning to gore 
everyone in sight. Sometimes a broncho would 
insist on kicking his way into the middle of next 
week. The Indian squaw races were always de- 
lightful, as the Shoshone women were immense, 
while their mounts were thin little things, with a 
habit of turning corners suddenly and upsetting 
their huge riders. The climax of the earlier shows 
was the pursuit of the stage-coach around the 


THe Witpv West SExtxs Irs ATMOSPHERE 313 


track by Indians, to be finally rescued by the 
cavalry and cowboys. 

One year saw the coach loaded with the Secre- 
tary of Agriculture and other notables together 
with some ladies. The stage horses, frightened. 
by the yells of the Indians and the revolvers and 
six shooters popping, got beyond the control of 
the driver and tore around the track in magnifi- 
cent style. The stage careened beautifully, all the 
ladies shrieked, the Indians whooped, and the 
cavalry had a hard run to make good the proper 
end of the act. Everyone who saw it was im- 
mensely pleased, and only sorry that a massacre 
had not been committed to round the performance 
off in good order. 

As the years passed, riders from more and more 
distant places came to compete for the honors 
at Cheyenne. ‘The show became an affair of more 
than one day, due to the necessity of giving con- 
testants a fair chance to “do their stuff.” As more 
and moére people came to see the Frontier Days, 
the gate receipts made it possible to offer large 
prizes of money. Saddles have from the begin- 
ning been donated by the Union Pacific Railroad 
to the winners of the bucking contest, and other 
trophies have been offered at various shows. Grad- 
ually the older men who rode and raced and hog- 
tied steers to make the holiday a success gave 
place to the younger generation who had been 
born and brought up in the saddle. Other towns 
emulated Cheyenne’s show, and soon these boys 
began moving from one show to the next. 'To- 


314 Tuer TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


day riding at these numerous celebrations is al- 
most a profession, many of the performers not 
being native to the West and knowing little about 
the business of ranching as it used to be practiced. 

The show to-day is a great and glorious athletic 
contest, full of thrills and life, all sorts of diver- 
tissements being used to attract attention which 
had no part nor place in the ranch life of the cattle 
ranges. Fancy roping, acrobatics on horseback 
such as the Cossacks of Buffalo Bill’s show used 
to do, complicated drills by cavalry, etc., etc. The 
now indispensable “bull-dogging” of steers is an- 
other importation, a stunt which a negro from 
Texas brought into the program one year. ‘This 
man used to fasten his teeth in the nostrils of the 
steer, and by the power of his neck and jaws turn 
the animal over on its side. Nobody pretends to 
do that any more; it is thrilling enough to see a 
man jump from his horse to the steer’s neck and 
twist him over by his horns. 

The crowd which patronizes the show to-day is 
of course the automobile tourist horde. ‘They see 
four or five days of perfectly managed, amazingly 
wonderful horsemanship of all sorts. The 
grounds are well-kept, steel grandstand, parking 
for automobiles, all the necessities of taking care 
of a multitude. 

But as the stranger sits in the upper stand 
looking out over the arena and paddock, filled 
with the tumultuous movement of horses, Indians, 
soldiers, cowboys, all in the full panoply of their 
various professions, and then gazes beyond to the 


Tur Wi West Seuzs Its ATMOSPHERE 315 


city buried in summer greenery, with its golden 
dome and church towers and array of houses and 
buildings reaching the long red line of the Fort 
Russell barracks and quarters, does it occur to him 
that in the whole area there is only one livery 
stable,—one inn for the stranger’s plug to be put 
up for the night? Does the guest of the city 
realize that if he stayed a month after the show 
he would hardly see a man on horseback in the 
streets of the “capital of the cow country?” Does 
he know that those Indians who are leaping about 
in front of the grandstand in a war-dance use 
aniline dyes to make themselves so gorgeous? 
That the Indians, the steers, the horses, the riders 
are hired under contract? In other words, that 
this spectacle can hardly be said to be the spon- 
taneous, untamed, gladhand West of the days 
that Owen Wister and Buffalo Bill and General 
Custer and Bill Nye and Colonel Roosevelt made 
immortal? 

Out of the acorn of 1897 a great oak has ma- 
tured; and because of the demand for ‘“‘Western”’ 
atmosphere, the Cheyenne show will last for many 
years. The business of being wild and woolly is 
highly lucrative these days. The riders make good 
money, the Indians have excellent pay and a won- 
derful time showing off, the contractors for the 
livestock get their rake-off, the city, which owns 
the show, managed through the Chamber of 
Commerce, gets both money and quantities of pub- 
licity. One will see many people on the streets 
at Frontier time wearing boots and spurs and, 


316 Tue TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


above all, the “ten-gallon” hats (a style imported 
into Wyoming in recent years, and in no manner 
resembling the less flamboyant and more prac- 
tical hats of twenty years ago), who, if they had 
to mount a horse immediately, would try to get 
on the wrong side or else discreetly flee. 

All this fol-de-rol is part of the “Western” 
spirit, resurrected in a form palatable to the great 
American public, whose appetite for Western 
“life” has been fed continually since the days of 
“The Virginian” by fiction and the movies. 

To the old-timer, viewing the same scene, the 
old picture of Cheyenne reverts to his mind occa- 
sionally, and, being human he thanks God that 
life is easier these days, creature comforts as much 
a part of Cheyenne as of any other city with a 
modern Chamber of Commerce, a country club 
and paved streets. A generation ago, there were 
few trees and they were all seedy-looking little 
things, much abused by the everlasting wind of 
cursed memory; the Capitol dome, just finished, 
looked rather lonely at the edge of a wind-swept, 
sun-bathed town, huddled around the railroad 
yards; Fort Russell was a compact but tiny circle 
of buildings off to the west. Yet there are times 
when “old-timer” will sigh for the days when to 
have a sense of humor was far more necessary 
than to have a bath; when horses spent the days 
and often the nights tied up at the hitching posts 
and rings down town, their owners busy drawing 
three of a kind or yelling “keno!” or taking on 
a few fingers of “licker.” 'The Dyer House and 


THe Witp West SEtxts Its ATMOSPHERE 317 


the Inter-Ocean no longer shine brightly for the 
fellow who has just spent a weary three days in 
a stage or on horseback; the Opera house has dis- 
appeared where Modjeska and Patti and Ada 
Rehan once enraptured audiences that wore silk 
hats as well as six-shooters; Sir Horace Plunkett 
in far-off Ireland is no longer on the board of 
governors of the Club; even the days when Roose- 
velt, on his vice-presidential campaign, left his 
train and rode 60 miles by horseback to Cheyenne 
to make a speech, are dim to most. 

Changes in the West came violently. All the 
above rigmarole is myth and legend to many in- 
habitants. Many people are indifferent to the tra- 
ditions and history of the communities where they 
come to dwell. Those who drift with the vast 
tide of humanity who make of the United States 
a land of nomads, hardly stay in a place long 
enough to absorb the whys and wherefores of the 
community. Many Western cities have acquired 
in their short lives much history and background, 
which is to be had for the asking from the now 
fast disappearing pioneers and earlier settlers. 
Cheyenne, especially, has been fortunate in the 
number of interesting people who have survived 
the exciting decades of the cattle period. 

Yet what a contrast to their yarns is the life 
of to-day. Your modern cowhand comes to town 
in a Pullman and gets a room and bath at the 
Plains Hotel. Road-shows do their turn in a 
movie-house,—Modjeska wouldn’t draw a cor- 
poral’s guard in Cheyenne or any other American 


318 Tur TAMING OF THE FRONTIER 


town nowadays!—The Cheyenne Club is now, 
alas! the abode of the Chamber of Commerce, 
where Frontier Day performances are cooked up, 
and where there is a “rest-room” for women auto- 
mobile tourists; Rooseveltian-mannered FPresi- 
dents do not await their hostess in the hall, amus- 
ing themselves by putting on war-bonnets that 
happen to adorn the room,—Presidents to-day are 
apt to be féted with a special Frontier show just 
as are trainloads of Shriners or luncheon clubs or 
groups of magnates who have made the front page 
in the newspapers. 

So Cheyenne passes to-day, the exponent 
supreme of the wild and woolly West. Dairy 
herds, dry farms, prohibition officers, the Y. W. 
C. A.,—progress, uplift, brotherly love—all ram- 
pant. It is just one more attractive, highly stand- 
ardized American city. Except for the ever in- 
genious youth of the community, who can occa- 
sionally work up considerable atmosphere redo- 
lent of the old days and ways, only two incidents 
have happened in recent years which recall the old 
West. 

One night, while a blizzard raged madly, a man 
struggling through the snow was suddenly con- 
fronted with two buffaloes. These belonged to 
a showman of the city, had got away from their 
moorings, so to speak, and were wandering help- 
lessly about. He who met these ghosts of yes- 
terday was, of course, accused of “having ’em 
again.” 

The other incident was the entertaining of the 


THe Witp West SeEtxs Irs ATMOSPHERE 319 


“lady” who was traveling with the scion of a fam- 
ous French banking family, by means of a lunch- 
eon at the Country Club. Only in Cheyenne could 
that happen. 














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